Father?
by Nym P. Seudo
Summary: They called me the Hollow Knight and I did not understand. A great destiny had been heaped upon my birth, but could I even count myself among the living? Purpose was handed to me like the hilt of a Nail. And when every sacrifice was asked of me I did not hesitate. For I could not.
1. Chapter 1

_**...Father?...**_

By Nym P. Seudo

 _ **1**_

I am alone.

This temple that is my domain—my prison—was built with claw and hammer and spell. It is vast. And it is empty. Beyond these walls the world persists, time flows its river's course. But within this egg there is no such thing. Eternity is an indivisible unit. And I will endure.

But…

I am burdened.

There is a weight upon me. Within me. It strains my shell, with such force that I might rip to pieces. Iron links press against the fulcrum of my body. Chains suspend me like a long-extinguished lantern.

I am weakened.

A dullness coats my limbs. The might that I once wielded has rotted away. My fingers can barely grasp the Long-Nail that has served as my only companion through this vigil.

I am haunted.

Within this cracked mask resounds a song. A desperate, keening thing, ever yearning for escape. It chimes and trembles and knells, growing louder. Always louder. It pounds against this fracture between my eyes, sometimes slipping through like a sickly roar.

I am alone.

But the King has left me my purpose, one that only I can fulfill. And I will see it to the end. I must.

His final words to me were as his first. And I remember them…

… _ **No cost too great…**_

… _ **No mind to think…**_

… _ **No will to break…**_

… _ **No voice to cry suffering…**_

… _ **Born of God and Void…**_

… _ **You shall seal the blinding light that plagues their dreams…**_

 _ **...You are the vessel…**_

… _ **You are the Hollow Knight…**_

From somewhere far beyond, the words came to me. They rippled through the inky dark and washed over my sleep like waves on a beach. And I stirred, for the very first time. A compulsion arose within me, one that suffered no dissent. Something sought my presence, and the words had come to collect me.

I followed them. Without thought. Without hesitation. Flotsam drawn on the tides.

I moved through a world of nothingness—an infinite, midnight sea—with those echoing words ever before me. There was no doubt of the destination, but progress was indiscernible. Distance. Time. All meant nothing in such a place. But as I drifted, something tugged at me: an ebony mass of tendrils and pincers that grasped out of the dark. They whispered to me. Begged. That I not go, that I let them tear me apart and scatter my being like wet clay. But such pleas held no sway over me, a greater purpose demanded. I tore away from the living shadows and pressed on.

A sudden wall loomed up before me, concave and immaculate like the interior of an egg. I collided with its unyielding surface and came to a halt. In its obsidian curvature I spied my own reflection: the horns, the ivory mask, the empty eyes. And I stared, for it was the only thing that I could do. The words, which until now had been so much like squall-tossed leaves, merged into a single voice. It boomed from beyond the wall, commanding me to appear, but I could not obey. My reflection refused to step aside and let me pass.

A force like a pounding fist reverberated along the barrier, and a crack formed to slash across my reflection's face. Gray light seeped from the crack like blood, only to be drawn and dispersed into the eddying void. A second blow fell, and with a shivering crepitiation the crack widened. My reflection distorted into a nightmarish facsimile. The third blow fell, and the crack exploded. The barrier flew apart, revealing a luminous rift that threatened to swallow me. The darkness all about surged toward it like water through a burst dam. And I tumbled along with it, helpless and ignorant.

The heavy weight of disparity bore down on me. Light and shadow. Heat and cold. Sensations that I had never known accompanied the birth of an alien world. I fell to a floor of brittle, white shards that crackled and sagged beneath my body. A torrent of black spilled over me. It sloshed and splattered against the floor, seeping through as if into parched soil. I lay there for a time, but for how long I could not say. There was no command to rise. And no reason to.

But a being stepped forward into my view. It towered over me, regal and still, like a lighthouse on a cloud-choked night. Draped around its shoulders was a cloak the color of steel that obscured its body and trailed along in its wake. The being wore an ivory mask—so much like mine—topped with seven slender horns resembling a crown. Its two dark eyes lurked in the mask's recesses, inscrutable. With a tilt of its head, the being regarded me and spoke—with that same voice that had shepherded me through the void.

"Rise, Vessel, so that I might see you."

The command flowed into my limbs and soaked them with purpose. I stood, and the world reoriented itself. The white shards were all around me, not just the floor but the walls and ceiling as well. They were everywhere. Everything. In staggering mounds, they rose, creating a landscape with nothing but themselves. Tunnels and caves and pillars formed from their endless procession. They were mask fragments… so much like mine. Intact horns and empty eye holes protruded from every surface. It was as if my own face were staring out at me, a thousand, thousand times.

And beside me, wreathed in bramble-black tendrils, sat an orb. It was huge and impenetrably dark yet possessed of a nacreous luster. I saw myself within it, but the being standing beside me did not cast a reflection. It was as if I floated alone in an empty expanse. A jagged wound—like a maw of broken teeth—marred the orb's otherwise flawless surface. Viscous shadow leaked from it like some vital force. And just as the being had… the orb beckoned to me. Faintly. So faintly.

The being paced about me, in a slow, methodical ring, noting the curvature of my horns, the slate-gray of my cloak, the darkness of my body. "I behold the apotheosis," it murmured. "The culmination of all sacrifice. This day shall be known, now until forever, as my Kingdom's superlative achievement." The steel of the being's cloak parted to reveal a carapace that gleamed like silver. It reached out an arm to touch me gently on the shoulder. "All my efforts shall never surpass what has been done this day. Come. Hope flutters like a dying Lumafly. The common bugs must see you—my triumph. They must believe in their King once more."

And I followed the being… the K _ing_.

No other desire presented itself.

My feet crunched against the uneven ground, cracking the faces like fragile ceramic. But the King glided effortlessly, leaving no trace or sound. The orb's whisper faded to nothing behind me, and we emerged into a sort of cavern, made of the same staring masks. On the far side, near a gaping, black tunnel, stood two more beings, even larger than the King. Both sported armored shells that shared the King's silver brilliance. One—the bigger of the two—wielded an enormous mace covered in spikes. The other wielded nothing but his own hooked claws. Their voices carried through the stagnant air, quiet, but perfectly clear.

"Our King keeps a rather grim collection, does he not, Hegemol?" The clawed one asked, eyeing the walls. "So many masks, but for what purpose?"

"Is this your first foray into the pit, Ogrim?" The mace-wielder murmured.

"Yes. I had not been given the—" Ogrim tapped a claw against his chest. "—honor until recently. Does it descend much deeper? I toil to imagine."

"That I do not know." Hegemol said, as he planted his mace on the ground and leaned. "I have never accompanied the King to the bottom. It is his custom to venture forth alone beyond this point. Many long vigils have I endured in anticipation of his returns. Perhaps the common bugs should take to calling me 'Patient Hegemol' and not 'Mighty'."

"It bears a pleasing ring _Patient_ Hegemol, but I doubt the common bugs will be hearing of those vigils. I knew nothing of this place before joining the Knights. And believe me, I was quite the intrepid adventurer. I believed myself to have scoured every speck of dirt and turned every stone within this land, but now that I know of this place, I see how closely the King keeps his secrets…"

"You speak the truth. And I would not have it any other way. Certain things are best never known. The common bugs need not concern themselves with this. They have enough on their minds already with that affliction."

Ogrim grunted. "If that was a joke it was in poor taste."

"Joke? Oh, pardon. That was not my intent."

The pair lapsed into silence, and the King paused mid-step. They did not notice him lingering on the edge of the cavern. I stood behind him and waited. For what, I could not imagine.

"But still," Ogrim muttered. "Hours have passed us by. How many more?"

Hegemol shrugged. "As many more as the King deems necessary."

"But is he truly safe in this place? We have a duty to uphold, after all."

"Do not doubt our King. If he were so frail a thing that this place could threaten him, then Hallownest would never have come to be. Our presence here is more for ceremony than protection."

"Very well." Ogrim crossed his claws tightly about himself. "But tell me in earnest, does this seem… _wrong_ to you? The smell. The weight to the air. All these broken masks."

Hegemol pondered. "Not particularly. It isn't the most festive locale, but there are far more unsightly corners in the Kingdom. I'd take this gloomy hole over a patrol through those stinking fungal tunnels any day."

"What is the King's business here? Has he told you of it?"

"As He always says, we are here for 'the good of the Kingdom'. That should be enough for us."

"Even so," Ogrim persisted, "what is the meaning of those ghosts? I have never seen their like in all my travels."

"Did I not just say that some things are best never known? Do not trouble yourself with these shadows. They may bite and nibble, but they are no match for a Great Knight. Those claws of yours are not merely for show, as we are both aware. There is no need to quake."

"'Quake'? Do not turn your jests on me now. I have never _quaked_ in all my years."

Hegemol chuckled, a low, reverberating sound that fought with the oppressive stillness. "Don't be so quick to bristle, my friend. It is all in mirth. Such a thing is needed here."

"I suppose."

"That being said," Hegemol continued. "I _do_ seem to recall a few quakes from you at the Battle of the Blackwyrm."

"Now wait just a moment! That is hardly fair! Everyone quaked on that day. Even our Pale King."

Hegemol suppressed another chuckle and began to reply, but something stirred in the tunnel beyond.

It was a shadow, so much blacker than the surrounding darkness that its outline was visible from a great distance away. It had no wings or means of flight, but it hovered like a storm cloud. As it neared, the shape of a horned head and luminous white eyes became distinguishable. Yet its lower body possessed no structure or symmetry. It dragged a knot of tendrils through the air like unraveling silk.

Hegemol and Ogrim readied themselves, brandishing their weapons and widening their stances. The shadow emerged from the tunnel and drifted forward. It glanced about the room, as if confused. The spotlight of its gaze settled first on Ogrim, then Hegemol, then the King, and finally… me. A whisper pressed against my shell, some plea in a language that I could not understand, and the shadow rushed toward me. It moved right between the two Knights, heedless of their existence, so focused was it on me. But they did not let it pass. The smashing mace and sweeping claws descended on it. And the dark mass of its body shredded into opaque bubbles that scattered in all directions. It wailed as it flew apart, and the sound echoed on inside my head.

"You see?" Hegemol laughed. "These little gnats are nothing before a strong arm and a keen weapon!"

"Well spoken!" Ogrim replied. "It was a mighty blow you delivered! Your namesake is well-deserved."

Hegemol snorted and hefted his mace over his shoulder. "I would rather you not heap so much praise on me. It is uncouth for a Knight to blush in the heat of battle."

"Ha! I'd pay good Geo for such a sight."

The King crossed the room and approached the Knights. For the first time, the masks cracked beneath his feet, announcing his passage. The Knights spun, weapons raised, but as soon as they caught sight of the King, they fell to one knee and spoke in relieved unison. "You have returned, Pale King."

"Indeed. You are unharmed?" The King lifted an arm, gesturing for the Knights to stand.

"Assuredly," Ogrim replied. "The Champion's Call was far more harrowing than this ghastly little romp."

"I am relieved," The King said. But he glanced about the room, his expressionless mask taking in the broken collage. " _Ghastly?…_ "

"I had begun to wonder, your Grace," Hegemol interjected. "Your previous searches have never taken quite so long. Did this one prove more auspicious?"

The King shifted aside without a word and revealed me. His curt command of "Step forth" took possession of my legs and sent me marching forward. The two Knights suddenly noticed me, as if I had manifested from the ether.

Hegemol buried the head of his mace into the floor with a wrenching _crack_ and crossed his arms over his chest. He spent a long while in silence, watching me.

Ogrim startled. "A child? Down here of all places? My Lord, how did you come across it?" He crouched at my level. "Are you frightened, little one? Hurt? Do not fear. Your King and his Royal Knights are here to protect you. Are you from The City? We could have you home in a matter of hours."

The King did not register the question.

And I did not reply.

"It is larger than the others," Hegemol observed. "Sturdier. Even from here I feel it is much more powerful."

"What o _thers_ do you speak of?" Ogrim asked.

Hegemol gave a forbidding shake of his head.

"Again, your keen eyes peer into the truth of things, Hegemol," The King said. "Before you stands the apex of my labor. The greatest Vessel to yet be conceived. Revel in this moment, for it betokens Hallownest's most sublime victory."

"You have that much faith, my Lord?" Hegemol murmured.

"Faith? No." The King strode past the armored bulks of the two Knights and into the far tunnel. "Vision… Now, come. There are many preparations to be made."

We traveled in relative silence, broken only by the snap of the masks underfoot. The tunnels twisted in sinuous patterns, looping over one another and ending without warning. But at no point did the King pause to reconsider his path. He moved with a relentless purpose, ever upward, ushering the group through the dark with that pearl bioluminescence that suffused him.

Eventually, as Hegemol's breathing grew haggard, we emerged into an immense, rectangular shaft that seemed to stretch endlessly into the shadows overhead. Grooved stone and titanic, fossilized shells made up its walls. At irregular intervals were clusters of spikes, each one nearly as tall as Hegemol. Their reflective, chitinous material made them gleam in the low light.

And yet more masks coated the floor.

"Again, our King guides us infallibly," Hegemol puffed. "Though we yet have a journey before us." He looked up at the erratic concretions of stone that jutted from the shaft's walls. They resembled giant stair steps and served as the only means of ascent. "Quite a journey indeed…"

"Muster your fortitude, Mighty Hegemol," the King said, "The time has come to depart this place, but another task yet remains for you." He reached into the folds of his cloak and drew out a four-pronged sigil of clouded quartz. Light spilled all about it like roiling fog. "As my will decrees, you shall recruit the aid of Loyal Ogrim and venture east to the lighthouse overlooking the abyssal sea. The light-keeper's long vigilance is done. Command him to disable the lighthouse and return with you to the White Palace. Nothing of worth yet remains in this festering morass. We shall leave it to its own devices and cast our gaze upon it nevermore. Take this simulacrum of my Brand. Once your task is complete, use it to forever seal the entrance at this shaft's summit. Ensure that it is done."

Hegemol knelt and lifted an armored palm to receive the sigil. "I understand, my King. Upon my honor, I will not fail."

The King stepped away from us and onto a more level section of the ground. "The Great Knight's Council shall be held in two days. Dryya, Ze'mer, and Isma shall be returning from their assignments in the other kingdoms. The White Palace's vestibule shall serve as our place of conclave. I need not remind you to be timely." He nodded. "Until then."

"Pardon, Majesty," Ogrim blurted. "But what of the child? The trek out of this chasm is arduous even for we Great Knights. Should we send for winged sentries to fly the little one to safety?"

"You do this _little one_ a disservice, Loyal Ogrim," the King said. "Let not its meager appearance delude your senses. It is far more capable than you comprehend." The King turned to me and locked eyes. He pointed up the shaft toward what appeared to be a metal balcony. "Observe and follow," he commanded.

The King flared his cloak about himself with a flick of his arms, and a corona of light encircled him. Overlapping steel gave way to translucent white, and in an instant the King's cloak had transformed into a pair of wings. Shed feathers hung in the air, twinkling like constellations before fading into nothing. But just as the King tensed in preparation for flight, an object—small and bug-like— plummeted from on high.

The object crashed into a heap of masks, launching fragments all about. Hegemol lunged forward, planting himself before the King and making a shield of his own body. The shrapnel bounced harmlessly off his carapace and clattered to the ground. A cloud of gray dust hung in the air, obscuring the fallen object.

"Another foe!?" Ogrim shouted, charging over to stand beside Hegemol.

"Steady yourselves, Knights," the King said. "That thing is no threat. No consequence to you. It is mere refuse being disposed of. Banish it from your thoughts and remain sworn to your charge. We shall speak again soon."

The King stretched his incandescent wings and flapped, with enough force to scatter the cloud of dust and send himself soaring into the air. He climbed without looking back, not even pausing to rest upon the stone slabs protruding from the walls. I watched him with unwavering intent, absorbing every movement of his body and slant to his wings. I could not wrench my gaze from him, nor did I wish to.

As the cloud of dust dissipated, Ogrim took a hissing breath and slid back a step. His attention was not drawn to the King, but to the fallen object.

It was a bug corpse.

One that resembled me in every way.

It too was a creature of white horns and black eyes, with a slate-gray cloak that concealed the darkness of its body. But there were minor differences. It was half-again smaller than me, and possessed four, diminutive horns that curled down to frame its face.

"What is the meaning of this?" Ogrim whispered. He looked from the corpse to the masks to me in quick succession.

Hegemol clapped a claw on Ogrim's shoulder and nodded eastward. "You heard the King's decree. That thing before you is of no concern. Come. We mustn't tarry."

Ogrim tore his shoulder free of the grasp. " _No concern_? In what way is this of no concern? Does that not resemble a citizen of our Kingdom? Stone-dead upon the ground?"

"Heed my advice. If the King sees fit to enlighten you, then he will. But for now, it is not your responsibility. Accompany me as you were instructed."

Ogrim knelt and lifted the still form in his arms. Its head lolled at a grotesque angle, revealing several cracks that ran the length of its mask. "It is a child, Hegemol! If this is not my responsibility as a Knight, then nothing is!" He seemed to recall my presence and shifted the corpse out of my field of vision.

Hegemol let out a growling sigh. "The King commanded us to—"

"He called it _refuse._ That it was being _disposed of._ "

"Do not allow yourself to be distracted!" Hegemol shouted. "We have a duty to uphold! Now rise! This is unbecoming of a Knight."

"Our duty is to the Kingdom. To protect those that lack the means of protecting themselves." Ogrim lifted his head. "What is this place, Hegemol? Is it a mass grave for the weak? Is it a Knight's failure?"

Hegemol clamped Ogrim beneath the arm and tossed him to his feet. Their faces hovered an inch apart. "That. Is not. A child. This. Is not. A grave. And the only _failure_ a Knight can know is to disobey the will of his King!" He swatted the corpse from Ogrim's arms and it sailed into a nearby heap of masks with a crash. The outline of its body wavered and frothed, like water just beginning to boil. Black bubbles separated from it and floated away on an imaginary breeze. "You are Loyal Ogrim of the Five Great Knights!" Hegemol snarled. "You have been granted a task by your King. Your Sovereign. Your Lord! Will you see it done? Or will you abandon your only purpose as you fret over the remnants of a broken tool?"

Ogrim's body trembled, so much that his shell rattled like a metal hut in a windstorm. He looked to me again, but I did not meet his gaze. My focus was elsewhere.

"Well, what say you?!" Hegemol slammed his palms against Ogrim's chest.

The King ended his flight at the summit of the shaft. His wings crumbled out of existence, replaced once again by the steel cloak. He tightened it around himself and resumed his austere posture. Even from that vast distance, I felt when he turned to look down upon me. His will echoed on and took hold of my body yet again.

 _Follow._

I responded like a marionette. My legs bent, my cloak fluttered, and a power that I did not know I possessed surged up within me. I jumped, straight up, and as I did so, the substance of my cloak transmuted into a pair of ephemeral wings, shorter than the King's but nearly as bright. They flapped, launching me clumsily into the air. I landed on the stone slabs, one after the other, planting my feet, bracing my body, and leaping up for another brief flight. Over and over, in mechanical repetition. And as I went, my movements grew smoother, more elegant, closer and closer to the King's.

I did not look back, toward Ogrim or Hegemol. I did not hear the last dregs of their debate, or Ogrim's reply. Every ounce of me was invested in the climb. Exertion burned in my limbs but I did not slow. I could not. The King was watching me, urging me ever upward.

 _No cost too great._

The words boomed inside my head as I glided from one platform to another.

 _Ten thousand failures have preceded you. And should you fall, then ten thousand more shall follow._

I kicked off a wall and soared over a cluster of chitinous spikes.

 _No mind to think. For to possess a mind is to possess a vulnerability. So easily subverted. So easily manipulated._

I grabbed a ledge and hauled myself to my feet.

 _No will to break. For time degrades all intent. Purpose, no matter how unflinching, is nothing before those ceaseless waves. Will is not enough. It must be discarded._

One of my wings shed a clump of ghostly feathers as it clipped the edge of a spike.

 _No voice to cry suffering. Toil is the lot of the living. To live eternal is to toil eternal. If suffering is foregone, then it need not be heralded._

I redoubled my efforts, one wing flapping harder than the other.

 _Born of God and Void. No tool of inferior element shall suffice. Only the perfect may achieve the impossible._

The balcony upon which the King stood grew closer with every strain of my legs and every thrash of my wings.

 _You shall seal the blinding light that plagues their dreams. The Kingdom cannot coexist with such uniformity. It inhibits potential. It murders the ideal. It sees nothing beyond propagation._

With one final lunge, I crested the balcony and landed before the King. My body lurched from exhaustion, but I kept my feet. The King watched me—with approval or otherwise, it was impossible to tell. After a time, he spoke and the echo left my head.

"You are the vessel. None other shall rival your merit.

You are the Hollow Knight… You are my child…"

My wings shriveled, curling up like a dying bug. They reverted to a cloak and hung limply about me as I heaved. My body felt tenuous and insubstantial, as if I would deliquesce and drain through the grating of the balcony.

The King paused, until my breathing returned to normal and I stood straight. "Many trials await you," he said, "each one more brutal and unrelenting than the last. Should you prove… deficient, then this same end shall be yours."

With a slight turn of his head, the King signaled to someone behind him. The balcony ended in an archway that led into a tunnel, and within I saw several more beings, more bugs. They were silver from head to foot, with oval-shaped carapaces, short limbs, and vestigial wings that hung down their backs like capes. They stood at attention beside a large metal cart, completely silent. The King's signal set them all into motion, and they hauled the cart to the edge of the balcony. They removed the silken tarp covering it to reveal a mountain of corpses. All of which resembled me. Just as the other corpse had. Horns. White masks. Dark eyes. Cloaks.

The King nodded again, and the silver bugs set to work dragging the bodies out of the cart and hurling them over the side. They plummeted like stones, striking against the walls and floors of the shaft, shattering into a thousand pieces. White shards and horn fragments sprinkled down the dizzying drop and rattled to a halt at the bottom.

Hegemol and Ogrim were nowhere to be seen.

The King crossed his arms beneath his cloak and watched. He noted the mask of each and every corpse before it was pitched, halting a silver bug periodically in order to see more closely. He did not speak. Even after the last body had been disposed of.

The silver bugs retreated once the cart was empty. They hustled quietly down the tunnel and around a corner, leaving the King and I alone.

"But… you shall not prove… _deficient," h_ e finally said. _"_ A different sort of destiny hangs over you. My prescience allows me that much. Do not fear, I shall ensure—" But he stopped, checked himself with a deprecating chuckle, and shook his head. "Come."

The King turned and left the shaft. He waved a claw in front of a large tablet beside the archway. Runes of white light blazed into existence against its dusky surface. They twisted, fading in and out, as if being rewritten. After a moment, the King slipped his arm back into the folds of his cloak and marched down the tunnel.

My feet drew me forward, with the same inevitable compulsion. But I heard a sound behind me: the scratch of limbs finding purchase upon the balcony's edge. And with that sound, a faint reverberation in my head. Like a voice, asking me a question.

I halted and glanced over my shoulder to behold another being. Like me, but diminutive, with underdeveloped horns and a tattered cloak. It looked at me, with wide, black eyes as it clutched against the pull of gravity.

…Did it desire something of me? Was it doomed to corpsehood like all the others? And was it… somehow my fault?

At the bend in the tunnel, the King stopped. "Come," he repeated, impatience creeping along the word's edge.

My purpose returned to me, and I strode down the tunnel after the King. The rasp of a failing grip and the flutter of a cloak in free fall resounded after me. And with it, a wail, haunting and silent.

But I did not look back.

I could not.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. There are several more to come... Please feel free to drop me a comment. Reviews are the author's proverbial carrot-on-a-stick.


	2. Chapter 2

_**2**_

The vestibule of the White Palace was towering and pyramidal. Silver rays filtered down through the oculus at its vertex, perfect and unbroken, for not a speck of dust sullied the air. Embedded in the walls were spires of twisted metal that weaved into one another, resembling enormous plant life. Standing lanterns, filled with Lumaflies, marched in neat parallel lines across the floor, soaking everything in a cream glow. At regular intervals, tear drop-shaped archways branched from the room and led off into the bowels of the Palace.

Across from the main entrance, a throne rested. A swirl of alloys composed it, whites and grays and ebony blacks. They rose up to form triangular points, more wicked than any Nail. The Pale King sat upon the throne and I stood beside him. Before us, kneeling on the floor were three bugs: Hegemol, round and massive, Ogrim, barbed from head to foot, and another. One I had not seen before.

Unlike Hegemol and Ogrim, this bug bore no silvered armor, no battle-ready carapace. She did not even wield a weapon. Her garb consisted of emerald leaves that clung to her body and imbricated at her waist, forming a sort of skirt. The six-eyed mask surrounding her head curled up in the back, and vines sprouted from it like two dangling braids of hair. She was far slenderer than the Knights, with long, tapered limbs and a quiescent grace.

We had maintained this posture for several minutes now, as still as sculptures. The murmur of far-off voices rebounded down the many tunnels, creating the illusion that the room was far less empty. There was a gap in the middle of the three bugs, wide enough to accommodate two more.

The King broke the stupor. He swept his cloak aside and placed a hand on the throne's armrest. His glinting digits tapped against the metal in a rhythmic manner, drawing the Knights' eyes.

Hegemol was the first to speak up. "Pardon Lord, but perhaps we should consider postponing the meeting? Or at least adjourning for a nap? It is not for a Knight to complain," he chortled, "but these recent days have been taxing, and rest is always welcome."

The King didn't even glance at him. His look was fixed squarely on the vestibule's main entrance.

"I beseech your patience, Pale King," the leaf-garbed bug said. "Dryya and Ze'mer would never deliberately inconvenience your court. I trust that they will arrive soon."

The measured tap of the King's digits did not cease. "Patience is an asset that I have never lacked, Kindly Isma. But ill news oft arrives at the most inopportune moments."

"Do you know something, Lord?" Isma said, her voice hushed.

The King pushed himself to his feet. "Offer your reports, my Knights. This assemblage shall not see completion, but your observations are still of worth." He tilted his head. "Isma. Tell me of our buzzing neighbors."

Isma stood and performed a willowy bow. "Queen Vespa of the Hive sends her regards, my King. She continues to ail and no Royal Larvae have yet been birthed, but her brood is strong, as always. They have stockpiled many lifetimes of supplies and sealed nearly all entrances to their domain. From the Queen's tone, she seemed… reluctant to accept your offer of formal alliance."

The King nodded. "As predicted. Such aggregated minds cling so tenaciously to routine. But convey her words. I would know her true sentiment."

"Is that entirely necessary, my King?" Isma asked, twining her arms together like ivy. "We are all aware of Queen Vespa's… blunt tendencies. Surely, she need not be repeated. Synopsis will suffice, yes?"

Parched laughter escaped the King's mask. It was his first sign of levity that I had borne witness to. "My Knights strive so valiantly toward my protection. In body _and_ ego. But Kindly as you are, Great Knight Isma, the painful truth is ofttimes necessary. So again, I ask you. Please convey her words."

Isma rubbed at the leaves of her skirt, smoothing and pleating them as a Maskfly would its wings. "If that is your will, King, then I must oblige." She cleared her throat. "Queen Vespa requested that I inform you of your _folly_ … She stated that you overstep yourself. That you are an upstart worm seeking to defile a sacred balance. That you are consumed by delusion, and arrogant beyond any living thing. That your goal is unachievable, and that in the end even the mightiest kings bow…"

"Such insolence!" Hegemol bellowed, half-rising. "What does that pitiful little bee know of achievement? She brands our Sovereign arrogant, yet spits assumptions as an Aspid would venom!?"

The King lifted a hand to quiet Hegemol. "The Hive Queen's barb bites more deeply with every passing year, it seems."

"Yes, but you must not heed such words, my Lord," Isma said. "Remember that Vespa is an ancient creature, nearing her days' end. It makes her scurrilous and ill-tempered. She does not believe what she says. I am sure."

"Ever swift to offer consolations. I Knighted you aptly."

Isma averted her gaze and clasped her hands at the waist.

"But," the King continued, "Vespa's dwindling life holds little sway over her voice. You are not the first envoy to return with such a message, and you shall not be the last. The Hive's dogma parallels much of that damnable Light. And Vespa has little desire to feign diplomacy. She has yet to aim her stinger at the Kingdom, but beings such as that are dangerous in their final moments." He descended the throne's short staircase and began to pace. His cloak slithered over the tile. "Mighty Hegemol, tell me of The City. How fares it?"

Hegemol shook himself as if dispersing a coat of snow. "The City still stands, Majesty. At least as of this morning when I last checked. The builder bugs informed me that the construction of Lurien's spire proceeds as planned. However, the cavern containing our City was too small to accommodate it. Necessity demanded that the ceiling be raised. The builder bugs are quite adept at such things, and the stone shaved away without difficulty, but now only porous rock remains. That vast water deposit above The City, the one they call Blue Lake, has begun to seep through. It showers the buildings like rainfall. Mild enough, but incessant. The mender bugs were tasked with its repair, but they claim such a thing is impossible with The City's current state. Some of the more boorish commoners have taken to calling our home 'The City of Tears' now."

The King shook his head. "To fret over something as trivial as rain is a luxury that this Kingdom lacks. Continue. What of my subjects?"

Hegemol rumbled a few decibels lower. "Regrettably, Lord. The affliction brings about more attrition with every passing moon. The City's guard strive to keep the ill quarantined, but the only observable symptom also happens to be its last: a deep and overwhelming sleep. We are often far too late… And to make matters worse, the affliction is a capricious thing. There is no pattern as to whom it consumes. The young. The old. The strong. The weak. Any bug can become infected at any moment. We have taken to hurling the victims that we can find over the battlements at Kingdom's Edge. But even then, from time to time they return, less than what they once were… Mindless. Feral. And as for those that we fail to detect in time… Attacks occur inside The City at all hours. Usually among kin in private abodes. Once the afflicted awake from their slumber, they lash out at everyone and everything, like base beasts in the throes of instinct. And there is no cure to offer them but the Nail."

"Expected," the King muttered. His pacing hastened. "And what of our might? Should it come to blows with our neighbors, do we yet still possess enough able bugs to repel invaders?"

Hegemol lifted his head. "Since the affliction began, our numbers have waned. That _plague_ takes from the Royal armies just as it takes from the commoners." He took a breath, and his voice rose like a hoisted flag. "But we are not yet bested, Lord! Especially by something so paltry. The Kingdom's armies remain stalwart. I am confident we would weather an attack from any one of the other kingdoms."

"I see. But what of _all_ the kingdoms, Hegemol? The Deepnest. The Mantis. The Hive. Those barbarians that have taken up residence with the Blackwyrm's corpse. Should destiny conspire against Hallownest, would we persevere? Against all opposition?"

Hegemol deflated a fraction. "I am no soothsayer, Lord. I do not possess your eyes. But if such a day were to come to pass, then I believe we would defend our lands. Our homes. To the last bug if need be. But even if our numbers should fail us, then we Knights are armies in ourselves! So long as we Knights stand, then so too will this Kingdom." He looked to Ogrim and Isma for a positive sign, but they did not meet his eyes. He lowered his head. "Our strength would see us through."

"Strength…" the King mused, as if he'd never heard the word. "Yes, strength is lifeblood of all kingdoms, is it not? Yet strength fails. Inevitably. As all things fail. The force of a bug's arm, the cutting edge of its Nail. Neither are immune to the passage of centuries. And without strength, a kingdom cannot survive. This is the meaning behind Vespa's words. 'Even the mightiest kings bow.' And yet…" The King stopped his pacing. His voice suddenly boomed against the twisted spires lining the walls. "My Knights. In my dreams I have witnessed a future where the gleaming armies of Hallownest have fallen to rot and ruin. Where time and fate have sapped the vigor from their hearts and denied their minds of purpose. In that future, strength had failed us…

But, within that revelation I spied hope. There are yet things in this world that rebuff time's devastating advance. There are yet things that retain their might, no matter the shambling ages." The King set his attention on one of the branching passageways. A repetitive clanking sound signaled the approach of something. "Ever have I strove to deny that future. All my works, all my sacrifices have been directed towards that singular goal. And today my diligence has borne fruit."

The clanging grew closer, and out of the half-shadows emerged a thin, looming creature. It resembled a bug, at least superficially, with four arms and two legs. But its body was pure metal, from the top of its tri-pointed helm to the bottom of its steel feet. In its hooked claws it grasped a great scythe of some strange, gray material. A sliver of its face was visible beneath the helm. Glowing white eyes peered out of a churning mass of liquid-black.

"A soldier that does not grow old. That does not tire… That cannot fear. I forged this hope into reality, so that the Kingdom may ever be protected, that its King may never grow frail… Now step forward, my Kingsmould."

The metal thing—the Kingsmould—jolted to a halt before the Knights and stood perfectly still. It did not breathe or blink. It did not scan their faces or even register their existence. A moaning voice filled my head when I looked at it, but the words were indistinguishable.

"It is most impressive, Sire," Isma observed. Her gaze darted from the Mould to a point over my shoulder. "Are there others of its kind? Is it… conceived in much the same way as your other _projects_?"

"Though this is the first," The King said, "many more have been molded and await animation. And yet more shall follow still. In war they shall serve as vanguards. In peace they shall serve as sentinels. Unwavering. Immutable. Safeguarding the Kingdom as Eternal Knights."

Ogrim roused himself and spoke for the first time. "Will these Eternal Knights challenge the Trials as we have? Will they also be required to best the Champion's Call to claim their titles?"

The King regarded him, unfathomable.

"My Liege," Ogrim continued, "We all know that Knighthood is a sacrosanct thing. Those without the purity of spirit and the righteousness of will are unworthy of it. If they cannot complete the Trials, then they do not deserve to call themselves 'Knights'. Has this creature's heart been tested? Is it just? Is it chivalrous?"

"Ogrim, please." Isma said. "Now is not the time for such things. Our Lord—"

"Silence," The King murmured. "I shall speak for myself, Isma."

She bowed and resumed her kneeling. "Pardon, Majesty."

"Ogrim… You are a neophyte among us. Your ennoblement is most recent in memory, yet you are swiftest to question me. To doubt. If I enlightened you of this being, of its heartlessness, its mindlessness, its disregard for the Knightly code, how would you reply?"

Ogrim stood and drew close to the Kingsmould, taking care to remain out of the range of its scythe. "My King, if that were true, then I would beg you to reconsider. Is not Knighthood more than mere power? Is not the intent behind the Nail more vital than the striking point? Have you not warned us that nothing is more dangerous than might without purpose?"

"The Kingsmould's intent is ever an extension of my own. You speak as if I enlist ruffians and cutthroats into our ranks."

"That is not my aim, Lord. I—"

"Hear this, Knight!" The King shouted, striding past the Mould and up to Ogrim. Though he was but half the size, the King seemed a giant. "I have beheld the innumerable futures that writhe before us. And each one is a different doom. To rule is to strive against adversity, be it kings or gods or delusions. And through power alone may anything be achieved. You are aware, just as I, that Hallownest teeters upon a precipice. Would you have me discard this wondrous instrument solely to shelter your sense of chivalry? Do you truly praise it more highly than the very Kingdom which you vowed to defend?"

Ogrim grew rigid, as if a lance had run him through. "No, my King. Of course not! If Hallownest requires it of me, then I will offer anything! My life, my SOUL, my… honor."

The King stepped back and adjusted his cloak. There was a tremble in his shoulders; almost imperceptible. "Good. That shall suffice, Ogrim. But, if it palliates your pride, then do not think of this construct as a Knight, but as a tool. To be wielded and expended on Hallownest's behalf."

"A tool." Ogrim echoed. And he looked up at me as I stood atop the throne's pedestal.

I met his gaze, but if there was meaning to be found, then it escaped me.

The light in the vestibule shifted as a silhouette rose up to block the main entrance. It cast a narrow, bug-like shadow over the strip of silken carpet that stretched to the base of the throne. "It seems that I am late," the silhouette rasped. Its feet squelched as it entered the vestibule, trailing dark residue in its wake. It bore a slight limp, and its arms hung heavily at its sides. Light from the Lumafly lanterns splashed over its body, revealing silvered armor and the gore of battle. Blood—in greens, yellows, and lurid oranges—dripped from its plated contours. In each hand it gripped the hilt of a broken Nail, similarly stained. "The Mantis are at war."

"Dryya!" Isma exclaimed. She rose to her feet and darted to the bloodied bug's side. "Are you injured? It looks most dire! I must retrieve my SOUL-healing supplies. Sit. Do not move. I will return as swiftly as I can!" She turned and sprinted towards a passageway.

"Halt!" The King said.

Isma skidded to a stop and whipped about. "But Lord!"

"Do not disparage the prowess of your fellow Knight. Fierce Dryya is unharmed."

"He is right," Dryya said, looking down at herself. "This is not mine."

Isma shuffled back and dabbed at Dryya's pauldrons with a shred of leaf, accomplishing nothing but to smear the blood like paint. "You are certain?"

Dryya nodded and waved the leaf away. She strode across the vestibule and toward the King. In motion, her body was lean and inflexible, like an iron rod. And yet the armor about her flowed so naturally. The faulds at her waist descended like the petals of a bellflower, and rustled as if caught in a faint breeze. She stomped to a halt before the King. "Where is my White Lady?"

The King took some time to reply. He scanned the blood that sullied Dryya, from the top of her three horns to her feet. "Later. Tell me of the Mantis. And Ze'mer."

"You foresee all things, do you not?" Dryya sniffed. "You should know better than I. Now, I ask again. Where is my Queen?"

The King bristled. "If the Mantis intend war, then I would hear of it. So, speak, Knight."

"The Queen is in her chambers," Isma interjected, stepping between the two. "She returned from Her Garden this morning on a Royal Stag. In good spirits, it seemed."

Dryya's stance slackened. Her shoulders drooped an inch. "Good. I must go to her. She must be informed."

"I am this Kingdom's Sovereign. You shall inform me." The King said. "Where is Ze'mer?"

Dryya did not reply, and marched off as if the King did not even exist, moving towards a passageway strewn with hanging, white vines. Ogrim and Hegemol rose, but made no move to stop her.

Isma was the only one to pursue, closing the distance with three elegant steps and wrapping her lithe arms around one of Dryya's. "Tell us, please," Isma whispered.

A graveled sigh escaped Dryya's mask. "If I must." Her broken nails dropped to the tile with a crash, and she turned back to the group, shouting as if addressing an unruly crowd. "The Mantis do not war with Hallownest, they war with themselves. In-fighting has sparked between the Mantis Lords. The strongest among them—the one the others have taken to calling the Traitor Lord—has absorbed the affliction within himself to elevate his power. Many of the Mantis warrior caste have thrown their lot in with him and done the same. They assaulted Mantis Village, attempting to stage a coup, but were repelled and have instead retreated into the Queen's Garden to lick their wounds and defile Her territory with their disease."

Dryya made another move towards the vine-choked passageway, but Isma would not relinquish her arm.

"When did this happen?" Isma asked.

"Hours ago," Dryya said. "I, Ze'mer, and our retinue arrived in Mantis Village for the annual Peace Talks, and within minutes the Traitor Lord struck."

"And what of that Royal retinue?" The King murmured. "What of Ze'mer?"

Dryya scoffed. "The retinue was decimated. Not a bug was left standing after the attack. Your servants are fragile. And the Mantis have always been excellent fighters. Without overwhelming numbers your people are easy prey. If the other Mantis Lords had not helped me, then I would be just as dead."

The King looked away, his head bowed.

"As for Ze'mer," Dryya continued. "She deserted."

"What?!" Hegemol roared, "Never! A Great Knight would sooner die!"

"I watched her retreat from the field of battle!" Dryya snarled. "She is a coward, or worse, a turncoat. Just as the tides shifted in our favor, she fled. With the corpse of some female Mantis in her arms."

Isma flinched as if she had been struck, and relinquished Dryya's arm. She pressed her hands against her mask, obscuring the six eyes.

Ogrim was at Isma's side in an instant. He placed a claw on her shoulder. "Take heart," he whispered. "This is a mistake, nothing more. Ze'mer would never do such a thing without reason."

"No, Ogrim," Isma whispered back. "You don't understand…"

Once freed of Isma's grasp, Dryya continued on her dogged path. She spoke over her shoulder as she exited the vestibule and pressed through the hanging vines. "I will return with fresh Nails and the Queen's bidding. If you _Great Knights_ plan to join me in the defense of Her Garden, then be certain not to imitate Ze'mer's failure."

"Halt, Dryya!" The King shouted. "You are to train the newest Vessel!"

Her reply was distant, and muffled behind the swish of shifting vines. "I do not have time for another of your puppets. Train it yourself."

The vestibule grew quiet. The King muttered something under his breath and returned to his throne. He fell into the seat and braced the temple of his mask against a fist.

Hegemol slammed the floor with his foot, with enough force to send tremors through the Lumafly lanterns. "Of all the arrogant, boorish, quarrelsome behavior! That _Dryya_!" He spat the word. "How can you tolerate this from your own Knight, Lord? This is far from her first offense!"

The King waved an arm and stared off into space. "She is not _my_ Knight. Fierce Dryya has forever belonged to The White Lady—to the Queen. Since long before Knighthood, or even Hallownest itself, Dryya has served as the Queen's lone protector and confidante. Thus, my Sovereignty means nothing in her eyes."

"That is no excuse, Lord!" Hegemol bellowed. "Is there not some punishment to be devised? This insult cannot be allowed to stand!"

"Do not overstep yourself, Hegemol. You Knights hold no dominion over one another. You possess no right to find fault in the actions of your peers. Should judgment befall Dryya, then it shall be at the White Lady's bidding, and none other. Such was the deal we struck. If you consider yourself to be my instrument—forged in the fires of my aspiration—then Dryya is but a thing lent and borrowed, nothing more. One takes special care with others' possessions."

"You speak fairly, King. But she went so far as to mock your prescience: the very foundation of this Kingdom. No instrument is devised to bite back at its wielder…"

Ogrim spoke up, barely above a whisper. "But did you truly foresee this attack, Lord? Ze'mer's desertion?"

Hegemol growled at Ogrim like an animal. "Watch your words, now."

"But did you?" Ogrim repeated.

The King sat upon his throne, as still as a corpse. Eventually, as if waking from a dream, he stirred. "No. Ogrim. No, I did not." With effort, the King rose once again and descended to stand before the Knights. "This conclave is adjourned. Step forth and receive your commands. If this Kingdom is to survive then there is much to be done. Thus, I ask once again of you Knights. Is your fealty unshakable? Is your conviction indefatigable? If the tasks that I lay before you demand your very lives as tribute, would you see them to the end?"

"Yes, Lord," Hegemol said.

"Always," Isma murmured.

Ogrim lifted his head, and his horns gleamed in the oculus' light. "For the Kingdom. Ask, Pale King. And it will be done."

"I expected no less," the King said. He lifted an arm and the Kingsmould, which had been immobile until that moment, lurched into motion. "Mighty Hegemol, you shall pursue Fierce Dryya, and aid in her purpose. My White Lady is as covetous of her domain as any monarch is rightful to be. She shall not suffer the Mantis within Her garden. You are to assist Dryya in its reclamation. And. To test the capabilities of my construct. The Kingsmould shall follow your commands as dutifully as you follow my own. Fight bravely, Knight. And return."

Without a word, Hegemol surged to his feet and marched off down the passageway of hanging vines. The Kingsmould trailed after him, clanging against the tile like a war drum.

"But what of us?" Ogrim blurted. "Would we not be of use on the field of battle?"

The King nodded at me over his shoulder, and I felt his command, even though it went unspoken. My legs were stiff and sluggish from prolonged standing, and I stumbled slightly as I descended the stairs. Isma did not look at me and kept her eyes locked to the floor, but Ogrim's gaze was unflinching upon me, head cocked to one side.

"Hallownest languishes," the King said, "not due to petty strife and border wars, but as the result of something far more malign." He gestured at me, palm up. "I forged this Vessel, this Hollow Knight to be a weapon capable of striking at that malignancy. In this regard, Loyal Ogrim, Kindly Isma, you two are to take charge over this Vessel and impart your knowledge upon it. Teach it all that you know of the warrior's mettle. And in doing so you shall prepare it to fulfill its ultimate purpose… And mayhap save us all."

Ogrim scratched at his head with a claw. "My King, I do not understand. How could this chil—"

"Vessel," Isma whispered.

"H-How could this _Vessel_ be of use to us?" Ogrim continued. "What salvation could it possibly offer?"

The King's scrutiny shifted from one Knight to the other. "Isma, you are privileged to certain knowledge regarding this Vessel's nature. Divulge what you feel is sufficient to dispel Ogrim's incertitude. I trust in your discretion." He lifted an arm and pointed toward the Vestibule's main entrance. "You pair shall forthwith escort this Vessel to The City's mustering grounds. The soldier bugs and commoners alike must bear witness to it, so that hope may not wither. Now go quickly, Knights. Time is not our ally."

With a flourish of his cloak, the King turned from us and marched down a passageway leading deeper into the White Palace. His steps made no sound as his shadow diminished into the distance.

"Well," Isma said, after a cough. "Shall we?"


	3. Chapter 3

_**3**_

Rain drummed against my mask. It dripped from my horns, pooled in the curvature of my eye sockets, and overflowed in rivulets down my cheeks. I dragged my sodden cloak across the cobblestones, creating wakes in the puddles like a boat on the open sea.

I was cold—colder than I'd ever been, and I shivered. But I did not voice my discomfort. I could not.

The rain-slicked streets of The City stretched out before me, all ornamented causeways and secret alleys. This was a place of angular buildings and tall spires, where everything was chitin and metal: the doors, the sign posts, the walls, the inhabitants. A liquid sheen coated the rooftops, giving them a glint like polished onyx. There were no clouds in the gray expanse overhead, for it was not a sky but the roof of the vast cavern in which The City nestled.

Among the towers in The City's center, one loomed above all the others, surrounded by scaffolding and the flying specks of worker bugs. This tower reached to the very ceiling of the cavern, which was crisscrossed with fractures like a frozen lake. Water flowed down from above, coating the windows and the flying buttresses with an undulating skin.

"Lurien's Spire," a voice over my shoulder said.

I turned my gaze away from the tower. Ogrim was staring at me. Again.

"That imposing stick in the distance belongs to Lurien, one of the King's most trusted advisers. Have you met him before, little one?"

I halted my march to meet Ogrim's gaze, but I did not reply. He paused beside me and waited in silence, patient as stone.

Isma, also paused, bringing our convoy of three to a complete stop. She planted a hand on her hip. "Despite your brave attempts at conversation, the Vessel will not take part. It was not made for such things."

"But I wager it understands me, yes?" Ogrim asked. "Everyone enjoys a chat now and again. In fact, this little one's reservation reminds me of an old stag beetle I once met long before I braved the wastelands and stumbled upon this kingdom. Not a word did that stag utter, no matter how I prattled at him. And for the longest time, I believed his kind to be mute or perhaps simple. I felt quite the fool for trying to spark a discussion with an aimless beast of burden. But, it wasn't until we parted ways that the stag offered me a graveled 'Farewell, and long life' before trundling off down a tunnel. Consider that this little one may have simply not found a matter worth speaking on yet."

"A whimsical idea, but it is very much impossible," Isma said. "Vessels have never needed to speak. And so, they never will. It was the King's verdict. Now, come along. The mustering grounds are a long walk, and this rain will not abate any time soon."

Ogrim murmured a half-reply before shaking his head and following Isma down the street.

The compulsion that the King had laid upon me—to follow and obey Ogrim—pressed against my limbs and sent me trotting over to the Knight's side. I did not resist the pull, for I had no other wish.

The relentless downpour seemed to affect Ogrim little. He trudged through it without complaint, the droplets plinking noisily against his armor and eliciting a sort of song that echoed down the tangent alleyways. His short, stocky legs crashed through the puddles, launching sheets of water into the air. But by comparison, Isma maintained a far more erratic step. She hopped from one haven of dryness to another, avoiding the puddles like pitfalls. In her hands she grasped the stem of an enormous heart-shaped leaf that hung over her head and blocked the rain. Streams descended from its edges and trailed behind her as she went. Another such leaf was wrapped up and lashed to her hip. She took it out and proffered it to Ogrim.

"Would you care for one as well?" Isma asked. "You look uncomfortable."

Ogrim laughed and stared up at the City's ceiling. "If rain could fell me, then I wouldn't be much of a Knight, would I?"

"But are you not cold?"

"I have walked colder roads than this. Places where endless ash falls from the sky like soiled snow."

"But you might rust." Isma persisted. "Have you considered such a thing?"

"Perhaps I'd look good in red," Ogrim countered.

"It would reflect poorly on our King if his Great Knights strutted about resembling something from the Nailsmith's scrapyard."

Ogrim faltered, one foot in a puddle. "That is true. But even so, it is not proper for a Great Knight to be seen cowering beneath a leaf. Especially from something so paltry as rain."

Isma chuckled. "Am I not a Great Knight myself? Do I seem to be cowering beneath this leaf?"

Ogrim whipped his head from side to side, scattering droplets. "No, certainly not. That was not my meaning! You would never cower, from rain or otherwise!"

"It is good that we've come to a consensus," Isma said as she held out the leaf once again. "Here."

After a moment of deliberation and surreptitious glances, Ogrim accepted the leaf, holding it awkwardly between his two claws. With a flick, it sprung into a favorable shape, and he lifted it tentatively over his head. The plinking of raindrops against armor ceased, and a relative quiet ensued.

"My thanks, Great Knight Isma," he mumbled.

"Think nothing of it. And formality is not needed here. 'Isma' is fine."

"Fair enough."

Our path took us through a residential area of The City. Modest houses lined the streets. They were small and squarish, each sporting one door and one window. Yet, no light filtered through their panes, and the constant murmur of habitation was nowhere to be heard. Forgotten possessions littered the porches: dolls of woven vines, mementos of crystal, heavy furniture. Metal planks sealed the doors of most of the houses, with signs hung from them depicting dead bugs lying on their backs. The Lumafly lanterns standing on the street corners were as dark as dead suns; their Lumaflys pooled motionlessly at the base of their bulbs. Nothing stirred.

"Day by day, our great city becomes its own mausoleum," Isma said. "Do you recall when these houses bustled with life? And the streets were filled with young bugs playing at being Knights? It was not so long ago…"

"Sadly, it was before my time." Ogrim said. "But, I would have liked to see it."

Isma halted before a house surrounded by City guards. They milled about in their dull gray armor, speaking little. Upon noticing Isma, the guards snapped to attention and offered stiff bows. Several more of them emerged out of the house, bearing a litter over their heads. An emaciated bug was sprawled upon it, motionless and barely breathing. The rain struck it full in the face, yet it did not even flinch. A nebulous, orange glow pressed out from behind its glassy, unseeing eyes.

The nearest guard began to offer Isma a report, his tone low and deferential, but Isma merely lifted a hand and brought him to silence. "There is no need to inform us, guard. This is an all too familiar thing. Carry on."

We continued down the street without another word. The echo of a hammer chased our departure, as another house was forever sealed.

"And I will see it, won't I?" Ogrim asked, long after the hammering had faded away.

"Hmm?"

"What this city had once been."

Isma let out a fragile laugh. "You are aware that only the King peers into the future, yes? I am not so blessed. No matter how dearly I might wish to, I cannot know what will come to pass." She rolled the stem of her leaf, sending the droplets spinning out into the dark.

"Then perhaps He would tell me?"

"If you posed that question to the King, then he would offer you no promises. No guarantees of the future. That is not his way. He requires that we subsist on hope and faith. That is our lot." Her grip tightened on the stem. "But so often the King's words ring so hollow, and his prescience seems a poor parlor trick."

"You speak of Ze'mer?" Ogrim asked.

Isma nodded. Her words were choked. "Ze'mer's doom was not His first oversight. Nor will it be his last."

Ogrim trotted up to walk at Isma's side. "But Ze'mer is not dead! If you desire, then we can petition the King and set out to pursue her. We can learn of her reason for deserting. If it is a righteous one, then the King may yet pardon her."

"There are many kinds of death, Ogrim. Though Ze'mer did not perish on that battlefield, her heart _did_. Life without a purpose is no life at all. The Great Knight that we knew is forever lost to us. We will not see her again in this world."

Ogrim tilted his head. "How are you sure of that? I have no skill for these riddles. What do you mean?"

"Please, no more questions. I cannot bring myself to speak of this anymore. Like so many other matters, it is not within our power to change. Let it be."

"Do not be so quick to surrender! Are you unwilling to so much as _look_ for her? We can—"

"Please…"

A hot breath rattled through Ogrim's body. "As you wish," he said, before falling back several steps to trail in Isma's shadow.

Much of The City lacked a means to drain the endless rain, and deep pools of standing water collected in the low places. Silently, we passed through tiled plazas, artificial parks, and abandoned bathhouses. Intricate fountains and wrought-iron benches passed us by, each one totally submerged beneath the indigo waters.

Isma guided us along a winding rout to avoid most of the flooding. But even so, I often found myself wading up to my chest, chill as ice. My cloak plastered to my body, slowing my movements and weighing me down. The tall Knights marched before me, dauntless, but I struggled to keep pace.

Eventually, Ogrim took notice as I lagged behind, and he broke the oppressive quiet that had ensorcelled us. "Do you have another leaf, Isma?" he asked.

Her voice was distant and dream-like. "I do not. Why?"

He looked at me over his shoulder. "This little one might also desire a respite from the rain."

The melancholy died in Isma's voice. It flattened and grew sharp. "It does not. I can assure you."

"Why do you say that?"

"Vessels cannot _desire_ anything."

Ogrim shrugged. "But this little one seems no different from you or I. Surely it wishes for _something_. All beings do."

We came to a halt before a stretch of shops. Accessories, books, flowers, and baubles sat in the windowsills behind cages of glass. Unlike so much of what we'd seen, this area was populated, even to the point of being crowded. Plain, round-shouldered bugs scuttled in and out of the rain, Geo jingling in their claws. Upon taking notice of us, the bugs whispered to one another and gestured in our direction. Many halted mid-step to stare.

Isma drew Ogrim by the arm, out of the rain and into an arched passageway that ran beneath a tall building. "The King requested that I enlighten you to certain things," she said, just barely audible. "I fell that now would be the best time. So, please listen to my words." She paused to collect herself. "Ogrim. You have been a Great Knight for just a short while. There are many things that you do not understand. I began my service in the King's court much like you. When the very first Vessel was revealed to we Knights, it seemed to me a bug like any other. A child. With a quiet, fathomless stare. But in time, the King revealed its true nature to us. We learned that it was no bug. That it could not feel, or desire, or dream." She leaned closer. "I understand your sentiments about this Vessel, but trust in me when I tell you that there are no secret thoughts hidden behind its mask. It is empty. As it was _created_ to be. There are many like it, and they are all the same. Over my years, dozens—hundreds—have paraded through the halls of the White Palace. All at the King's behest. And inevitably they broke. Or were broken. Like brittle pottery in careless hands." She turned away. "Do not become attached to such a thing. It is unwise of you to think of them as anything other than—"

"Tools?" Ogrim asked. "Hegemol had similar advice."

"He offers wise words despite his jovial ways. You should take them to heart."

Ogrim said nothing for several seconds. "I understand."

Isma gave a weary nod and we resumed our walk.

We passed beneath a portion of the cavern's ceiling through which ran a particularly deep crack. Rain gushed down like blood from an open wound. It pounded upon my head and bowed my shoulders, making every step an onerous task. Water eddied and swirled about my shuffling feet, threatening to trip me. But suddenly, the rain ceased. The pattering continued all around me, but it no longer drummed against my mask. I looked up to behold the green barrier of a leaf hanging over me. The song of rain upon armor resumed.

"There. Is that better?" Ogrim asked me, as he held out his umbrella and a torrent of water fell over him. "I do not know much about Vessels, but even you must be growing weary of the rain. We can't have you drowning on your feet, now can we?" His laugh was like flight, spiraling ever upward toward an unseen sun.

I did not voice any thanks, for I had none to give.

Ogrim continued to hold the leaf over my head as we crossed a series of bridges suspended on black metal chains. Hastily-constructed drainage ditches surged beneath us like raging rivers.

"No, Ogrim. No, you don't," Isma muttered.

"Pardon?"

"You do not understand. You have not heeded me at all."

Ogrim teetered from foot to foot as he walked. "I am sorry," he said. "But in truth, Isma, you have never spoken this way before. For a moment, I thought that I heard the King's voice in chorus with your own. It… unsettles me. Is it not you who so frequently chides me for oafishly stepping on stray flowers? Or scurrying Shrumelings? Is that grove of yours not a precious gem in your heart? Those ferns and vines do not hope or dream or feel, yet you treat them with the same bursting kindness that you offer each and every bug that you meet. I do not understand why this child—"

"Vessel," Isma interrupted.

"I do not understand why this _Vessel_ deserves less…"

Isma stopped on the outskirts of The City, where the cobblestones gave way to the smooth, unbroken cavern floor. In the distance, on a slight incline, was a collection of tents—the mustering grounds. The sound of clashing nails carried through the rain.

"Living things are precious," Isma whispered. "All living things. And it is our duty as Knights to protect them…" She turned to look at me—directly at me—for the first time. "But this automaton that the King has wrought is no living thing. It houses no beating heart, no SOUL of its own. It cannot care about itself or anything else. It is like Monomon's machines. Cold and numb."

Ogrim took a step between Isma and I, as if to make a shield of himself against her words. "For as long as I have known you, Isma, I believed you to be incapable of hate. Was that just a fool's conceit?"

Isma flinched. "Call it hate if that so pleases you! But the King has given us a charge, and you will follow me." She tore away from us and ascended the incline toward the mustering grounds. "If you refuse to hear the truth, then I must show it to you."

The mustering grounds were a collection of huts and lean-to shelters centered around a huge, sandy pit. Contingents of bugs hid from the rain beneath silken tarps and chattered quietly among themselves. Within the pit, several sparring matches seemed to be taking place, the source of the constant, metallic ringing in the air. The occupants clashed with blunted Nails, accompanied by battle cries and grunts. They were a motley assortment, in all sizes, shapes, and levels of skill. Most were frail-limbed and thin-shelled. And some were even shorter than I. Their equipment varied from freshly-forged to old and rusted.

But as we three came into view, all activity shuddered to a halt. Even the combatants stopped mid-strike to wheel about and gawk. Murmurs rippled through the collection of bugs at the appearance of Great Knights.

Isma leaned forward as she walked, as if braving a powerful wind. "The King commanded us to teach this Vessel about battle. But this is not the first Vessel that I have trained. Or the tenth." She stopped beside a rack of Nails to inspect them, before grasping the very smallest one and lifting it up into the rain. It looked like a toy in her hand. She tossed it at my feet, and it embedded half its length into the stone. "Tell it to take the Nail, Ogrim. It will obey you."

Ogrim cleared his throat and glanced about. "I understand that the King advised us to make haste, but perhaps it is too early for this one to be using non-blunted Nails?" He leaned down to me. "Have you wielded a weapon before, little one?"

Isma strode over to the sparring pit and asked its current occupants to vacate. Her voice was soft, but left no room for argument. The bugs bowed and scuttled up the embankment to rest themselves on the edge. A crowd began to form and encircle the pit. Isma paid them no mind. She cast the leaf umbrella aside and leapt nimbly into the pit's center, where she remained perfectly still, her delicate body tilted at an angle.

Ogrim's breathing was heavy. He crouched to plant a claw on my shoulder, and searched my eyes for a sign that was not there. "You must tell me if you are not prepared to face this challenge. Isma is not jesting. She means to test you in a far harsher way than I had hoped. Speak up. I cannot help you if you do not."

I offered no reply.

Ogrim released me and rose up like an iron tower. "Fine, then. Take the Nail, little one. Meet Isma in the pit. And… prepare yourself."

I obeyed without hesitation and extracted the cold hilt from the stone. The tip of the Nail carved a thin scratch in the cavern floor behind me as I approached the pit. I slid down the embankment on unsteady feet. The bugs in the crowd, who were now so numerous that they threatened to spill over the pit's edges, spoke to one another, first in murmurs and then in bemused shouts.

"...A rather short one..."

"...Yes, a poor challenge..."

"…Look at that measly Nail! I wouldn't even cut my meals with it..."

"...Is this a farce!?..."

Ogrim followed up to the edge of the pit. "Did you train the other Vessels in this manner?" he yelled. The din of the crowd had grown so great that his voice barely carried.

"I have never had an audience, if that is what you are asking," Isma shouted back. She drew a pouch from beneath the folds of her leaf-skirt and emptied it into the palm of her hand. It was seeds, a dozen of them, diamond-shaped and violently red. "With the first few Vessels I was cautious. Kind… They were small, and seemed so unsuitable for battle. I was loathe to let them hold so much as a training Nail. Yet, the King was adamant that I test their limits. And so, I did."

The rain drenched Isma's body and flowed down the veins of her leafy garb. The seeds rested in her cupped hand, inert and lifeless. She held them close to her mask as if to inspect them. And as she did this, something stirred about her, like the rippling heat of a great furnace.

I felt it. A vast, inviolable energy writhed and swirled throughout the pit. Invisible, but undeniably salient. It expanded and receded in fantastical patterns before coalescing within Isma's seeds. They trembled with infused energy, threatening to vibrate off her palm. And immediately, she cast them into the sand, as if they had burned her. They disappeared beneath the coarse grains like pebbles in a pond.

"Command it to attack me, Ogrim," Isma shouted. "You need only say one word."

The crowd settled, and the pressure of their voices diminished to an ambient hiss.

"Please, just wait." Ogrim said. "I've never seen you bring twelve seeds to bear before. It is too dangerous! You could kill the little one with this sort of power!"

"Command it to attack me, Ogrim!" Isma repeated, louder. She settled into a defensive stance, arms held out to either side. "You cannot kill something that has never lived."

"No more semantics, I beg! We should simply—"

"Command it!" Isma roared, all melody stripped from her voice.

Only the rain disturbed the sudden hush. Isma's outburst had crushed the chatter of the crowd like a twig.

The moment stretched. Ogrim stood impossibly still. But eventually, a single, choked word escaped him. "Attack."

Like some combustion, a new purpose hurled my body into motion. There was no doubt that Isma had to be destroyed. It was the only thing in all the world that mattered. And I did not question.

I charged, and the crowd returned to a cacophonous bellowing. More jeers and mockery were leveled at me, but the words meant nothing. Isma made no move as I gained speed and the distance between us diminished. As if by its own accord, my cloak melted into a liquid-black shadow and trailed like torn ribbons in my wake. I dashed, impossible fast, and before the crowd could even process, the sandy expanse that separated Isma and I vanished. I was suddenly standing an arm's length away. And without pause, I struck with my Nail.

Yet, Isma seemed to have expected this. She danced out of the range of my attack—narrowly avoiding the killing slash that I had leveled at her neck—and swung her arm through the empty air, as if to slap at some phantom adversary. And everything began to rumble. In an explosion of wet sand and rubble, twelve scarlet vines emerged from the earth and lashed out at me. I attempted to evade, but one tendril connected with my back and sent me tumbling over the sand like a skipped stone. I smashed into the embankment on the far side of the pit. Loose-packed rock caved behind me, and a crack ran the length of my mask.

"This is meant to be but a sparring match!" Ogrim yelled.

The crowd grew deathly silent.

Isma once again adopted that defensive stance. "No! This is a battle! And so long as either of us can still move, then it will continue! It is the test that the King desires!" She risked a half-instant to glance in Ogrim's direction. "No matter how many lessons I spent with you, I could not teach you the most vital: to never underestimate your foes."

Pebbles and sand cascaded over my blemished mask. My body ached and the world spun like a falling leaf. Yet, the command remained unfulfilled, and burned on inside of me. My Nail had yet to bury itself in Isma's chest. I could not stop.

The crowd murmured as I tottered upright.

Now, a wall of squirming, scarlet vines separated me from my goal. They were easily five times my size, and wove in and out of one another like long grass caught in conflicting winds. Thorns covered them from tip to base and flashed in the wet world like sharpened metal. But I strode toward them all the same.

Isma did not wait for me to fully recover. Through a gap in the wall I spied her jab an arm in my direction, and the vines sprang like an extension of her body. They coiled, stretched, and whipped at me in one twisted mass. But just as they slammed into the sand, I once again darted forward, and the ebony substance of my cloak encompassed me. For an instant, I became intangible, and phased through the attacks like a beam of light through a pane of glass. I skidded to a halt on the opposite side of the vines, unharmed. With Isma right before me.

This time she seemed surprised as my Nail stung through her silk-thin shell and bit at the vitals inside. I tasted a sweetness; an invigorating power. But as I drove my Nail home, she wrenched her body to the left, preventing a deathblow. The Nail's tip screeched across her chest and shoulder. The sweet taste vanished as we stumbled apart. Before I could regain my balance, she waved her arm in my direction and the vines crashed down, cratering me into the sand.

"Your point is made, Isma!" I heard Ogrim shout from far away. "That wound is too dire! Cease this fight so that we may staunch the bleeding!"

"Stand up, Vessel!" Isma screamed. "If you cannot best me then you will never fulfill your purpose! Stand up!"

I surged to my feet, not for Isma's words, but because the drive to kill her would not relinquish me. It consumed my every fiber.

The vines descended again for another attack, and as I struggled to evade them, I struck out with my Nail. One vine severed cleanly and toppled to the sand, twisting and convulsing before withering into ash. But that did not slow the other vines. They continued to bludgeon and toss me about like a raft upon river rapids.

With every swing of my Nail, it felt as if my arm would be torn off, but I did not stop. Several glancing vine blows shredded my cloak and added fresh scars to my mask, but I did not stop. Opaque bubbles floated off the surface of my body, but I did not stop.

And more vines fell.

A strange feeling accompanied every successful cut. Milky light siphoned from the dying plant life and into me. The sweet, invigorating taste returned, and I redoubled my efforts, for a hunger had awoken in me. It ached even more than my failing body, and each vine that I felled offered the slightest satiation.

Isma retreated several steps and pressed an arm against the hideous gash in her chest. She hunched low and heaved for breath, but her other arm continued to wave through the air, guiding the remaining vines.

A horizontal slash of my Nail opened a path for me, and I took it, dashing forward as I had before. The vines swiped at my passage, attempting to restrain me, but they grasped only air. I had escaped their range and now nothing separated me from my purpose. Isma ceased her waving. The tension left her body. The vines behind me curled up and grew dormant. I needed only to land a single blow, and the fire that compelled me would be snuffed.

The space between us evaporated, and with all the strength left to me, I thrust the Nail at her throat. But there was no screech of metal against shell, no splattering crunch, just the whistle of compressed air. Isma flowed around the Nail like a stream of water. She shrugged to the side and the killing point went wide. With one arm still pressed against her own chest, Isma snatched me by the wrist, extended a foot to trip my own, and flipped me bodily onto the sand. The world inverted and I found myself staring into the cavern's fractured ceiling. With no Nail in my grip.

I leapt back up. Isma's maneuver had done no harm, but as I wheeled around to face her, the very Nail that I had just wielded shot out to slash me across the mask, from right temple to left cheek. Something black and viscous dripped from the wound. I stumbled back and reoriented. Isma held the Nail in one hand, and was pointing it at my eye socket.

"The King was not mistaken," she rasped. "You are stronger. Faster. Than any have ever been." She swallowed something seeping up the back of her throat, and her voice fell to a whisper that only I could hear. "You are every bit the killing machine that the King has longed for. But I am forced to question what sort of salvation such a killing machine could offer. My heart tells me that I should… end you. Here. Before you drag the King even deeper into his madness. Before your _void_ devours us all."

My weapon was gone… I had been ordered to destroy this bug, and even though I now lacked the means, the urge did not dissipate. I glanced around as Isma spoke. Nothing but sand and rock greeted me.

And yet.

Deep inside, a power churned. Not my own, but something borrowed. The sweetness that I had felt when my Nail connected with Isma's shell now billowed inside me like a sail. It knotted and bulged, seeking an exit from the cage of my body.

Isma took a deep, rattling breath. She tightened her grip on the nail and inched forward. The crowd grumbled like one gigantic beast.

"…Is it done, then?..."

"…They're still fighting..."

"…Have any of you ever seen a Great Knight bleed before?..."

"…She's readying the Nail! It's an execution!..."

The power centered itself within my chest. It pressed from the inside out, threating to crack me open and spill forth in a torrent. And I did not hold it back.

"I am sorry," Isma whispered. "If that means anything." She lifted the Nail and stepped forward, aiming another slash at my mask, but this one charged with lethal intent.

The crowd howled condemnations and approval in equal measure. Swept up within that discord was Ogrim. He slid down the pit's embankment and rushed across the sand. But he was far too slow.

SOUL erupted from my chest; concentrated lifeforce that I had stolen from Isma one blow at a time. It moved like a comet, luminous-white and unstoppably powerful. With a concussive blast that forced the crowd into silence, the SOUL slammed into Isma, tearing the Nail from her hand, hurling her to the ground, and cracking her shell.

I pounced straight for the discarded Nail, snatching it by the sand-peppered hilt. In the slick reflection of the blade, I beheld my own mask. It was a ruin of slashes, fractures, and that puzzling black blood. Despite the quake in my legs and the failing substance of my body, I stumbled toward Isma. She lay prone, seeming to drift in and out of consciousness, at one point bracing her arm against the sand in a futile attempt to rise.

My purpose screamed at me. She had to die. Three uncertain steps separated us, and then I would drive the Nail into her heart. There was no other possibility.

The crowd screamed. Armored bugs stormed down the embankment. The pounding in my head did not relent, and I found myself gazing down upon Isma's face.

The Nail rose.

And a roar cut the bedlam.

"STOP!"


	4. Chapter 4

4

And it was gone.

Like a puff of smoke; a breath of air; a fog bank shredded by the summer sun.

The imperative—which had demanded Isma's death above all other things—forsook me. And I was left behind, feeling heavy and lethargic. A new command pinned my feet to the sand and twined through my arms like rusted shackles.

I did not move. I could not.

The Nail, which now hung frozen above Isma's chest, was flung aside by a silvered claw, impacting wetly against the sand. Ogrim loomed over me, panting.

"Enough, little one. That is enough."

And from every side, I was submerged beneath a sea of bugs. They flooded into the pit, laying their claws upon me, every scrap that they could grasp, and held me still as if I would fly away. Many circled furtively around Isma.

"…Kindly Isma is wounded?..."

"…It is most grievous…"

"…Did that runt really do this?..."

"…It's impossible. Did you see the way it moved? It was like dark magic…"

"…And that blast of light! I've seen it before! Among those outcasts. The snail cult…"

Ogrim waved his claws over the heads of the crowd and bid them to step back. They released me, falteringly, but only once my Nail had been confiscated and ferried away.

"Make room!" Ogrim bellowed. "Make room!" He knelt over Isma and cradled her in his claws. Rain chimed against his back and dripped from his chin onto her mask.

After a long second, Isma stirred, again swallowing something in her throat. "O..Ogrim?..."

"I am here. You must be still. Rest. The little one delivered quite a blow."

Isma lifted a hand and pressed it against her chest wound. It came back damp, not with rain, but with a pale, blue liquid. "Quite a blow indeed," she whispered. "The King would be pleased."

"What nonsense is that?" Ogrim growled. "The King would take no pleasure in the suffering of his Knights."

"Perhaps not, but he would… revel in the triumph of his Vessel…" Isma tilted her head to glance at me.

Ogrim leaned in. His voice grew low and strangled. "Can you heal it? Is this merely another death that you defy?"

Isma let out a chuckling gasp. "I am afraid perhaps not this time… The Vessel is a… rare sort of thief. I am drained… I need my—" She lapsed into silence.

Wildly, Ogrim pulled Isma close and checked her breathing. He lifted her into the air, like a bundle of broken sticks, and roared. "Move aside! All of you! Now!"

The crowd divided before him, creating a passage through the chitinous sea. Their voices were an indistinguishable tumult, but they all carried a cumulative question. And it occurred to me as well.

Had I… killed her? Is that what I had wanted?

Ogrim moved with uncharacteristic grace, careful of the burden in his arms. He did not answer the queries hurled at him like stones. But as he reached the steep embankment, he came to a halt. "A litter!" He yelled. "Quickly! And rope!" The two nearest bugs scrambled to fulfill his demands, vanishing into a nearby supply tent.

From across the camp approached a retinue of lumbering warrior beetles. They were large, spherical, and heavy-armored. Greatnails hung from silken sheaths on their backs. They maintained a wary vigil, and shoved away any members of the crowd that strayed too close. In the center of their defensive circle strolled a thin, ghostly figure.

As they reached the edge of the pit, the warrior beetles parted, and the figure shuffled forward. I failed to define it, bug or otherwise, for it was concealed beneath a long, gray cloak that ran the length of its body and pooled in tattered strips at its feet. The only distinct feature that it possessed was the mask upon its head, pristinely white and bearing a single, oval eye.

Ogrim finally took notice. He leaned forward, as if to better see. "Watcher Lurien?... What are you doing here of all places?"

Lurien's words seemed to stain the air, and not even the rain could wash them away. "I watched," he said. His apparitional body rotated a few degrees, inclining the mask toward the distant Spire of his namesake.

"I—I see," Ogrim said. "The King decreed that we Knights were to train this vessel in combat, but—"

"I know."

Ogrim lurched. "—But, the sparring grew too fierce. There were injuries." He looked to me, at the black, tar-like substance that oozed through my mask and dripped onto the sand. "Isma is in a most serious condition. We—"

"I saw."

Ogrim's voice cracked. "She is in need of medical care. Healing!"

"I know."

"Is there a SOUL master nearby in the city? Someone who could tend to such a wound?"

"No."

A tremble worked its way into Ogrim's limbs "A medicine bug? Anything?"

"No."

"Time is very short. There must—"

"I know."

"Lurien. She needs aid! Will you help her? Have you no purpose in being here?!"

Lurien's body bent forward, lowering the mask as if to stare at his own feet. Mud and sand had collected at the fringes of his cloak.

All was silence, but the rain. Seconds passed, and Ogrim's tremble became a quake. "Lurien!" he screamed.

"I know. Yes. No."

"Wh-What!?" Ogrim gave a violent shake of his head.

Lurien turned to his retinue and nodded. "My garden."

The beetles swayed into motion, like statues infused with sudden life. Out of the supply tent emerged the earlier pair of bugs, draped in vine-rope and bearing the litter that Ogrim had demanded. They hastened toward the pit, but were stopped by Lurien's retinue. The beetles silently, but forcefully, appropriated the rope and litter before descending the embankment and forming another defensive circle. They did not ask permission to extract Isma from Ogrim's arms, but he did not stop them.

"And what good will your garden do for her?" Ogrim asked. He stood sentinel as the beetles lashed her to the litter. The blue ichor continued to seep from her chest, like a spring emerging from a fractured rock.

"Watch."

"Offer me more than but a single word! Can she be saved? Tell me!"

Lurien's attention did not drift from Isma's still body. "Trust," he said.

Ogrim hissed out a long, hot breath. "Very well… But you must be most careful with her. At times, even Great Knights are fragile."

"Yes," Lurien seemed to concede.

At the nudging of the warrior beetles, the crowd dispersed, back beneath their tarps and out of the rain. Isma's litter was hoisted up the embankment and carried off, with a beetle on each handle like a royal procession. It moved smoothly and swiftly out of the camp, waiting for no one. Ogrim hasten after it, without so much as glancing in Lurien's direction.

I was soon left alone upon the sand, immobile and aching. Something of me pulsed beneath the mask, each time bringing a lance of pain and a fresh, black droplet. Fatigue shook my legs, compelling me to fall, but my directive required otherwise. I was to remain still. As long as necessary.

But Ogrim did not turn back to collect me. His wide shoulders vanished beyond the rim of the pit, and the rainsong of his armor faded into the distance. He had forgotten.

Only Lurien remained to stare at me, slowly scanning from top to bottom, ending on the expanding puddle of black at my feet.

"Vessel…" he finally said, testing the word. "Come."

My body heaved into mechanical motion. And for the first few steps, Ogrim's command lingered, chaffing against this new order and hindering my progress. But over time it attenuated into nothing and Lurien won out. I ascended the embankment with quavering arms and settled myself at Lurien's side.

He turned away, departing the camp without another word.

As did I.

The last dregs of the crowd watched us go. "Like a mindless beast," one of them muttered.

Lurien's path through The City was indolent and meandering. Ogrim, Isma, and the retinue had long since left us behind, but that did not hasten Lurien's step. He paused many times to observe things. A broken metal fence, the sodden remains of a scroll, a tumble of masonry aside a derelict building, a green-shelled child twirling a parasol. He did not approach anything. And did not respond to the child's wave. He just stared.

We stood beside a puddle on the road. It was deep, as if some huge weight had fallen from above and indented the cobblestones. Something lurked beneath the water, but the rain's assault distorted the surface. Lurien leaned over it, obstructing the rain with his body and stilling the water. "Look," he commanded. Below the lingering ripples, a cluster of broken glass slowly came into clarity. It reflected the frosted light of the Lumafly lanterns, painting Lurien's mask with warped rings of gray that danced and shifted with the slosh of water.

I leaned in to look, as I had been ordered, and the glass glittered before me like diamonds. But as I gazed, an inky droplet filtered through the crack in my mask and fell into the pool. It dispersed like tines of lightning, unspooling and lancing out toward the fringes of the puddle. In the passage of seconds, the waters were overtaken and transformed, becoming opaque and unnaturally still.

Lurien's body crackled as he straightened. He looked at me, at the blackness smearing my mask. And out of the parting shadow of his cloak emerged an emaciated arm, with long digits that ended in needle-like points. He reached out, tracing the curvature of my horns, the circle of my eyes, and the fissure that ran down my forehead.

"Pain?" he asked. "Terrible?"

I did not reply. Merely dripped in the rain.

"Come," he repeated.

He set off again, abandoning the puddle without looking back. And this time, he did not dawdle with errant distractions. Our march was unbroken, until the silhouette of the Spire blotted out the cavern's ceiling beyond.

Lurien's Spire was a structure of stone and metal, with intricacies imperceptible from a distance. Fossil-like carvings embedded its archways, and jagged, gleaming steeples adorned its roofs. A sheet of glass covered one side of the building, rising all the way to its summit and offering a view into the Spire's innards. Floor after floor, chamber after chamber, of elaborate decoration gazed back into the gloom of The City.

We stopped at the entrance, beneath an overhang supported by gilded pillars and covered in conical spikes. A massive pair of doors guarded passage into the Spire itself, but they hung ajar, just wide enough to accommodate visitors. Lurien shook the water from his cloak before proceeding, and bid me to do the same. Once inside, the ubiquitous hiss of the rain became a far-off, splattering percussion.

Within the Spire it was warm and bright. The entrance gave way to a vast, tiled atrium, five stories tall, with a ceiling of mirrored glass. Scroll-stacked library shelves lined the perimeter of the room, illuminated by hanging chandeliers. Tables and silk-draped benches were arrayed upon the floor in elaborate geometric patterns, and all about them were bugs. Young and old, large and small. They reclined on the furniture, clenching writing utensils in their pincers. Discussion bubbled amongst a few, but the majority scribbled and read in silence. Activity did not cease at Lurien's presence, as it had for Ogrim and Isma back at the mustering grounds. Only a handful of the bugs acknowledged the Watcher, with glances and shallow bows.

And in turn, Lurien paid them no attention. We ascended a staircase onto a landing that offered a sweeping view of the atrium. Beside us, an attendant bug—polished to a sheen—stood before a darkened shaft that rose up into the Spire above. Lurien nodded at him, and the bug responded with a dexterous genuflection that nearly brushed his eyes against the floor. The bug reached over to a silver lever and yanked it with brutal efficiency, eliciting a distant rattling sound that grew gradually closer. Soon, an open-faced elevator, suspended on metal chains and crowned with a row of spikes, descended into the shaft. The attendant bug hopped inside and readied himself beside another, identical lever. He did not speak, but gazed at Lurien intently.

The ascent was jostling, and my enervated legs toiled to maintain balance. The walls were close about the elevator in a claustrophobic embrace, and the only light came from a lantern embedded into the ceiling. The Lumafly within fluttered fitfully, periodically dimming to a sickly orange.

An unusually powerful jolt stole my feet out from under me, and I stumbled to the elevator's floor. Lurien's current order was to follow him, and I could not do such a thing collapsed upon the ground. I pulled myself back up by bracing against a brass support beam. But once I had steadied, another jolt hurled me back down. Lurien watched me, head tilted, as I repeated this several times. Darkness dripped against the cold metal, and the pulse behind my mask intensified. Each throb was like feeble arms beating against a prison. Black bubbles escaped through the gaps in my cloak and floated into the air, before evanescing in a corrosive sizzle.

But by my seventh attempt, Lurien bent over and placed a cadaverous hand on my shoulder. "Sit," he said, before taking his own seat upon the ground. His cloak billowed out and settled amorphously about him, concealing his shape.

I fell again, and this time there was no compulsion to rise, instead the opposite. I slumped, legs outstretched before me, arms limp at my sides. The panting did not end for some time.

The attendant bug blinked. And glanced from Lurien to me. He cleared his throat as if to voice something, but instead seated himself on the floor and crossed his legs. He kept one arm at the ready beside the silver lever.

Above and far off, the concussion of rain grew louder. It rose steadily, climbing toward a paralytic cacophony, and the shaft's walls suddenly fell away, replaced with one long sheet of glass that stretched into the interminable distance above. The rain slammed relentlessly against this new, translucent barrier, but accomplished nothing. Below us sprawled The City. It was an indistinguishable mass of shadow-shapes, cut by pinpoints of light, like stars in a crumbling sky.

Across the city, the densest constellation of lights carved a twisted, centipedal path westward, toward the mustering grounds and the tunnels beyond. Lurien observed it from his seated position, looking like a watchtower atop a hill.

The elevator slowed and ground to a screeching halt before the entrance to a corridor lined with many closed doors. The attendant bug sprung to a standing position and gestured expectantly, but Lurien shook his head and glanced up. The attendant yanked the silver lever once more and we resumed our ascent.

This process repeated, each time revealing another aspect of Lurien's Spire. A room of scrawny, sallow-eyed bugs bent over liquid-filled glassware. A barracks stocked with beds, lances, and winged sentries. A plush parlor decorated in hanging tapestries, with lurid paintings suffocating the walls. A filigreed balcony embedded in the glass, roofless and open to the rain.

Eventually, the elevator stopped at a portal discrepant with all the others. There was no twinkle of precious metals or the sheen of polished stone. Just greenery; a dome-shaped chamber, replete with life. And it was large, with lofty pillars and a high ceiling that culminated in a skylight. Leafy vines dangled from the walls. Untamed shrubbery peppered the brown-black soil. And flowers exploded from every surface, in every color and shape. Red helices with splaying tips, blue bells that curled inwardly, yellow starbursts packed so densely that their petals could not be counted. Some plants were sequestered behind silvered fences or perforated shells of glass, others burgeoned unhindered.

"Come," Lurien said to me.

In the midst of the verdure were Ogrim and Isma, alone, for the beetle retinue was nowhere to be seen. Isma still lay upon her litter, the ropes cut and tossed aside. Ogrim sat beside her, his back braced against a pair of tree trunks that had coiled into one. Upon noticing us, Ogrim rose and strode over. His step was different. Unstable.

"Her condition has not changed," Ogrim said. "Her breathing is shallow, and her sleep will not end. I fear that she—Well… I fear a great deal of things."

Lurien did not immediately reply. He turned back toward the elevator and nodded once more at the attendant bug. With that same, acrobatic genuflection, the attendant bug pulled the lever and descended, leaving the four of us alone.

"Fear." Lurien said. "I know." He moved to Isma's side, sliding smoothly across the grass and the protruding tree roots. Ogrim followed.

And as my command dictated, so did I.

Ogrim offered me a look as we walked together—one fleeting second—before turning back to Isma and bowing his head. He gazed upon her as if she rested at the base of a deep pit. "Soon after my Knighting…" he began. "A matter of days, actually. Before I was even granted time to fully convalesce, a crisis befell the Kingdom. That year, a great spawning of dirtcarvers had overpopulated Deepnest, and in their discontent the pests tunneled into the Queen's Garden, seeking fresh prey and wider spaces. The gleaming legions of Hallownest could not be spared, so instead the King dispatched we Knights to resolve the matter." Ogrim sighed. "It was our inaugural moment. The first time that we Five Greats battled side by side. And what a magnificent sight it had been… We chose a knotted grove as our place of combat, infested with vines and brambles that served as their own sort of bulwark. And though hundreds—thousands—of dirtcarvers hurled themselves against us, we held firm. Minutes turned to hours, and when one of us inevitably fell back in exhaustion, another was ever quick to take their place. I saw the best in my friends that day. Hegemol's crushing power. Dryya's relentless ferocity. Ze'mer's unerring insight. And Isma's…" He shook his head, and chuckled weakly. "It will serve as an eternal stain upon my valor, but at first I could not bring myself to join in the fray. Apprehension bound my feet to the earth and would not leave me. But as the battle's intensity reached its zenith, and it seemed that the beasts' raw numbers would win the day, Isma's words were what spurred me to action and shook the fear from my heart. That day will endure with me always. The truest embodiment of Knighthood."

Lurien nodded. Silent.

"But now," Ogrim continued. "Ze'mer has forsaken us, and Isma…" He swallowed. "This very morning, I learned that we Five Greats had diminished to four. But by this evening will it be three?"

"No." Lurien said, with a forcefulness that he had not yet displayed. He crouched at Isma's shoulder and reached through the folds of his cloak. Those needle-thin fingers stretched down to clack against her mask, causing near-microscopic scars upon the surface. "Awaken," he commanded. "Drink."

Isma twitched and took a wheezing breath. Her carapace crackled like an old eggshell and she coughed. One of her tender arms shot out to the side of the litter, blindly, desperately, searching for something. Her grip settled on the branch of a shrubbery with feather-fine leaves. And then she settled, released her breath and went slack.

Lurien stood and gestured for us to step back. Ogrim protested, but still acquiesced, retreating to the archway that led toward the elevator shaft. We watched Isma from across the room. She was corpselike in her stillness, yet the trickle of blue continued from her chest.

"What is the meaning of this?" Ogrim asked. "How is this meant to aid her?"

Lurien replied in a liquid murmur. "SOUL."

And as he spoke, Isma stirred upon her litter. She raised her arms into the air and grasped at something invisible overhead. A phantom wind began to disturb the plants nearby. They sighed and scuffled as the wind rose to a gust, and then to a gale. Shrieking filled the room and rattled the panes of the skylight. Loose leaves and blades of grass danced crazily in the current.

And I saw it, again, just as I had during our battle upon the sand. A ripple ran through the world, warping and twisting the space about Isma, condensing into a single point and clawing outward, like a singularity.

A white mist, like ink dispersing in water, rose from the plants all throughout the room. The trees, the shrubs, the flowers. They all exuded this pale, luminous substance—the very same that I had drained from Isma's vines. The gale tugged at this ghostly mist, shepherding it through the air and toward Isma, in countless, thread-fine streams that centered upon her chest like the spokes of a silk wheel.

Every plant trembled, quaked. And wilted. The greens of the leaves, the reds, blues, and yellows of the flowers, they all bleached, and then blackened, as if consumed within an inferno. They bowed upon their stems and branches, before crumbling into desiccated husks and settling upon the ground.

The mist swirled above Isma's raised arms like a gathering tempest. It warbled and sloshed, keened and muttered. The hunger sparked in me at the sight of it, but went unsated. After one revolution, the mist was drawn into Isma's chest with a great rush of wind, and vanished.

The once lush garden was now an umber ruin. And Isma's once mortal wound was now but a memory.

She lowered her arms by her sides and took a great breath that swelled her unblemished carapace, and then she relaxed.

Ogrim stormed across the room, kicking dead plant life into clouds of ash. They coated his armor and smothered away its sheen, but he was heedless. "Isma!" He cheered, as he fell to his knees and lifted her head with the flat of a claw. "You are healed! Death is bested yet again! Oh, thank the King!"

Isma coughed, gently and swiped a hand over her chest. "How long was I—"

"Hours at the most," Ogrim said, his words a stream. "We ushered you here as quickly as the Watcher Knights could manage."

"Here?..." Isma pushed to a sitting position with Ogrim's aid.

"Lurien's Spire. It was his proposal to bring you here. To recuperate in the Spire's—"

"Garden," Isma breathed. She absorbed the room with a slow turn of her head, lingering on the pallid bark of the twined trees beside them. She extended a trembling arm to cup the petals of a bellflower. It was brittle and brown like corroded glass, and shattered at her touch. "I see…"

Lurien approached the pair, and I trailed after. Isma flinched at the sight of me.

"Lurien," She said. "You brought the Vessel? But why is it still wounded?"

They inspected the slashes and fractures in my mask. I was hunched, sluggish, and black bubbles still drifted from my body like molted feathers.

Lurien heaved a sort of shrug. "Depleted. SOUL-less."

Isma gazed into the middle-distance over my shoulder. "It weaponized the SOUL that it stole from me… And yet it cannot mend itself. All the other Vessels were the opposite…" She shook her head and attempted to rise.

"Easy now," Ogrim rumbled, "You are adept as ever at miracle-making, but that was _close_ , Isma. Far closer than I would ever like to see again."

"I am fine," Isma replied, with a half-waver. "Lurien's shrewdness saw to that." She nodded at the Watcher. "I have you to thank yet again. And I am sorry that your garden was made a sacrifice for my meager sake. It is… lamentable."

Lurien glanced down at the husk-strewn dirt, and prodded at it with a foot through the folds of his robes.

"Well then, if you are truly recovered," Ogrim huffed. "Then do explain yourself! And not just this." he gestured vaguely to the dead plants, "but also that madness of yours at the mustering grounds. That was no death-duel, and yet you still fought with such bestial vigor. It is wild fortune that this little one still lives. What compelled you to such lengths?"

"You do not possess the right to chide me," Isma began, "And I already informed you that the _Vessel_ is not alive, it is—"

And you!" Ogrim shouted, jabbing a claw in my direction, as if just now noticing me. "Little one, do you know nothing of sparring?! There is a vital—some say _sacred_ —distinction between warfare and mere practice. When you approach a fellow Knight in the yard, you do not strike at them with every shred of your strength. You exercise restraint, especially when clashing with one weaker or less experienced than yourself! Sparring is the act of bettering one another through gallant combat, one Nail sharpening the other. It is not some squabble of rabid mawleks."

I looked at Ogrim. Fellow Knight?... Restraint?...

Ogrim paused, allowing his indignation to echo off the walls. "Well?" He asked, his gaze shifting between the two of us.

I said nothing and bowed my head. Maintaining consciousness was growing more and more difficult. The fatigue weighed upon my back like slabs of stone, and my vision shrank to a pinpoint in a sea of black.

Isma wobbled to her feet. "Suddenly, Ogrim, you speak as if I am the novice and you the veteran Knight. You know full well why I tested the Vessel so. But that truth does not suit you, and so you banish it from your mind. There was great risk in what I did, yes, but it was necessary. For our King. For Hallownest. Do you truly expect some manner of apology?"

Ogrim's bluster fell and rose, like a sputtering flame. "I—Perhaps I do! But not for myself, no. Mutual amends are in order between you and the little one. Even if that brutal clash was in some way imperative, you mustn't allow lingering resentment to fester. A few earnest words can repair any rift."

"The Vessel does not care about wounded pride and reparations." Isma shook her head. "You know this as well as I. Would you have me apologize to a lance or a hammer? This is no different."

A few seconds passed. The burden of my own body was crushing. Gravity threatened to hurl me to the ground, like the flowers and withered shrubs. Lurien took note as my legs spasmed and my shoulders bent. He spoke one word to Isma, "Heal", but it was swept away in Ogrim's next outburst.

"You are so adamant, and I cannot fathom why! Every third day, Hegemol expresses his undying love for his own mace! What harm is there in a few _kindly_ words, hollow though they may be?!"

"Because it is senseless!"

"And are those beauteous arias you offer your grove not senseless as well? The plants have no ears to hear. They must care not."

Isma shot Ogrim a sidelong glance. "Your fondness for this Vessel is a mistake. It has none for you I can promise. And its only destiny is sacrifice."

Ogrim clawed aimlessly at the remains of a flower bush. "This power that you possess… You sucked the SOUL from these plants like a starving squit. Is this why you keep your grove? So that it might serve as _your_ sacrifice if necessary?"

I fell to one knee with a faint thump, and struggled to rise, but my limbs did not respond to me. I grew numb.

"Yes. It is. And I am not sorry." She turned to Ogrim and straightened, all the frailness seeping out of her. "Just as our King, I do what I must. So that I might be powerful enough to protect the things that I cannot afford to sacrifice. Like this kingdom. Its citizens… And you."

Ogrim stiffened. He began and abandoned several sentences, before going quiet.

"You fear that I grow cold, don't you?" Isma asked. She reached out, but stopped, and hid her hands behind her back. "But I am what I have always been. And your eyes only now open to the truth of things." She looked down at herself. "This is a Great Knight, Ogrim. It is what you have sworn to be."

"So, was my vow… folly then?" Ogrim asked. His voice was parched and cracked. "Should I—"

Vertigo surged, and the ground rushed up to slam against my mask. The garden, strewn with corpses, spun and spun, all the while diminishing behind a pall of gray. The vague awareness of panicked shouting reached out to me. And And then darkness devoured me.


	5. Chapter 5

5

I did not dream. For I lacked the means to do so. Only black pressed against me, inexorable and crushing. There was no sensation. No thought. No command. The blaze of purpose was extinguished within me, and for one midnight moment, nothing drove me to act. I was not required to wait, or follow, or kill. All that remained for me was to sink. Into a different sort of void.

But it did not last.

Far-off voices flitted over me, at first too quiet to understand, yet they climbed steadily into coherence. Fragments of dialogue—like beams of light—lanced through the murk that ensorcelled me, sweeping it away and flooding my nothing with resonance.

"Do you suspect that the little one will recover?"

"Why do you insist on that title?"

"What, 'little one'? It is a suitable name for the Vessel, don't you think? Considering its vertical challenges. And besides, the King also calls it as such. That is reason enough."

"The King speaks in jest, I am sure; that name is just another of his dry humors. He does not indulge in such acts of affection."

"As far as you are aware."

"What?"

"I would wager that you have not borne witness to our King's most private moments. And it is said that the toughest shells conceal the tenderest hearts. He must care for his creation in some way, yes? Do you not suspect this of our King, as I do?"

"No, Ogrim. No, I do not."

The voices receded, and the viscid dark closed in once again. But this time I was not left alone. Pain remained to jab at me like a molten spike. My head, my body, my limbs. They all ached as if they had been torn apart and stitched back together.

And with the rising pain came another surf of voices to wash over me.

"Did the King teach you?"

"Hmm?"

"Your powers. Those healing arts. Did He share His secrets with you? Is that how you became a Great Knight?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Is there no tale to tell? Your legend must have a beginning, as all legends do."

"This persistence of yours will not lead to a pleasing revelation. It is best not to pry."

"Even so, I wish to know. Please, Isma."

"Fine. As you wish. When I was but a small thing, the King recognized in me a certain aptitude. Perhaps He foresaw something in His many futures, but whatever intent drove Him, He allowed me a glimpse into the nature of SOUL. I learned all that I could from the King, and then began my own studies. Many years of toil yielded up their knowledge, and I became something of an expert."

"That ability of yours, the way that you… _drink_ the SOUL from the life around you. Was that part of the King's instruction?"

"No, that came of my own insight, and it was an insight that I should never have shared. Listen, Ogrim, this subject will come to light no matter how I might wish it to remain shrouded, so it is best that you hear it from me. Are you familiar with the SOUL Sanctum?"

"The Sanctum? With its rumors, yes, gruesome as they tend to be. Do you claim an association? Truly?"

"I do. The most profound association, in fact. For you see, I originated the Soul Sanctum. Without my meddling it would never have come to be. But firstly, you must know that in its early days the Sanctum was a different sort of place, a center of scholarship and integrity. Before my Knighting, I invested much of myself into its development. Many advancements within the field of SOUL manipulation—healing, growth, regeneration—were thanks to my efforts. Although, I am certain that the King resents my deeds."

"I see now why you are always so hesitant to speak of yourself. But why would you say such a thing of our King? It would seem an unfitting hypocrisy to grant you knowledge and then condemn you for it."

"The more that I learned of SOUL, the less tutelage that the King was willing to offer. SOUL is an infinite well, and no matter how deeply I dove, there were always greater depths; more secrets to be devoured. I suspect that the King Knighted me not for my prowess, but merely to draw me away from my research. And perhaps He was correct to do so… It seems that the Sanctum's goal has long since been lost in its pursuit. The work toward prosperity has twisted into the obsession over power. And I often wonder… did the King foresee this outcome? Is this all but another facet of his machinations? But the truth is laid out, and you now know the source of my art, sordid as it is. You are welcome to revile me if it so suits you, but expect no penitence. I did what was necessary, as I will continue to do."

"Isma, I would never _revile_ you… I—"

"Wait. The mending has begun."

The voices ebbed away. But I no longer sank. A buoyancy—a swelling—in my chest lifted me from the clutching void. The shards of pain were pried from my body and a cool embrace settled over me. The dark was wiped away like a coat of mud, and Lumafly lanterns flared into my perception.

Consciousness returned to me, and so too did the voices, but they did not quaver with distortion as they had before.

I beheld Isma.

She crouched over me, her fragile hands pressed against my mask. Trailing wisps of white light hung all about us like clouds of pollen. "It is done," she said, breathing heavily. "I've repaired its shell as best I can. It should heed your commands now." She half-fell, half-rolled back onto the dead grass and propped herself up with quivering arms. "If I possessed more SOUL, then the mending process would be easier, but… there is little left here to spare."

"Still, it was masterful work," Ogrim said, stepping close. "This incident would have come to a far more gruesome end without your art. It is my onus to admit that."

Isma continued to pant, her gaze upon the floor.

"So, is the little one awake?" Ogrim continued. He looked down from the great pinnacle of his body. "Are you alright?" he asked me. "Can you stand?"

I did not respond, but the words came to me as a command, like rushing water filling an empty basin. I pushed myself off the shriveled earth and dregs of vertigo threatened my balance, but I did not fall.

Lurien's garden stretched out before me, gray and lifeless. It was just as it had been before I lost awareness. Skeletal branches, blighted leaves, and disintegrating flower petals greeted me. Ash flaked off the vines that clung to the walls and fell like snow.

"Woah, careful now," Ogrim murmured. He cupped a claw beneath my arm and steadied me. "Your stalwart conduct is admirable, little one, but do not push yourself to such a breaking point. By the King's own words, you are a treasure of Hallownest. Always rest when you feel a need for it."

Isma leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her knees. "There is scant reason in coddling it, Ogrim. Learning the Vessel's breaking point was the exact intent of this trail." Her voice grew hard. "And it seems to have surpassed me in that aspect."

Ogrim released my arm and cocked his head at Isma. "What is this I detect? You called the little one incapable of resentment, but do you claim the same merit? That mutual amends I demanded was not merely for the sake of _its_ pride, but also yours."

"Why would I care about such a thing?" Isma asked, tightening her grip on her knees. "One does not begrudge a training dummy."

Ogrim chuckled. "It is fortunate for us all that you are such a mighty warrior, Great Knight. Defeat comes to you so infrequently that you have not yet learned how to be graceful in it. Perhaps you should take a note from me. With all our sparring, I quickly mastered that particular skill."

Isma rested her head on her knees, as if she could no longer hold it aloft. "Please. Enough," she said, barely even a whisper.

Time stretched, and Ogrim shifted from foot to foot. "I am sorry," he said. "That was clumsy. I had hoped a dash of Hegemol's humor might ease things, but—" He rested his armored bulk upon the ground. "Sorry."

I watched the pair, for no other purpose presented itself. The pain and weariness that had hung from me like serrated hooks were now gone. I stood tall once again.

I was… relieved.

From across the desolate garden, Lurien approached. He kicked at flower husks and piles of ash, removing the meager obstacles from the cobbled path. His lower robes were caked with filth, as if he had been at the task for quite some time. He spied me and shuffled near.

"Repaired," Lurien observed, tonelessly. "Good." He extended two slim hands to explore the rectified contours of my mask. His touch was light, like droplets of water. "Come," he said, as he turned away from the ravaged garden and set off toward the elevator shaft.

And just as it had before, Lurien's command clashed against Ogrim's like a rusted blade. The two differing orders, one to stand, the other to follow, vied for supremacy within me. I leaned toward Lurien and took a ponderous step. And another. But a voice called out, dragging me to a halt.

"Wait," Ogrim said. He rose and wiped at the dust coating his shell. "Watcher Lurien, where are you off to with the little one?"

Lurien drew a line with his gaze, from Ogrim to the elevator shaft and then back again. He repeated his command and resumed his walk. "Come."

I lurched into motion, my legs stiff and faltering.

"I must insist, please wait," Ogrim said, jolting me to a second stop. "The King entrusted the little one to my care. Now that Isma is no longer in mortal danger, I would like to remain true to my charge. Grant us a moment to recuperate and we will accompany you."

"It is alright," Isma whispered. "Doubtless, the King has provided Lurien with his own instructions. He has as much a right to guide the Vessel as we. And it is unreasonable for us to hinder him with my weary steps." She stood up, so laboriously that Ogrim reached out a claw to assist, but she shooed him away. "I offer my thanks yet again, Watcher. Without your wisdom then I would be a corpse, and the Vessel might have been irreparably damaged." She offered a shallow bow, hardly more than a nod.

Lurien's frame rose and fell, as if in a deep breath. He inched closer to the elevator shaft.

Ogrim hunched beside Isma. "Are we sure?" he asked, hushed. "The King will not be displeased? I do not possess an immaculate chronicle of fautlessness as Hegemol does, but I do not much enjoy failing at my duties."

"You need not worry, our service here is done." Isma said. "And besides, I too have a task in need of fulfillment. That only you are suited for."

Ogrim cleared his throat. "Well, I—If I am needed then I suppose things _are_ concluded here. I certainly don't intend to suggest another sparring session. We've had more than enough excitement today." He lumbered over to me and leaned down. "Little one—Little _Knight_. This was quite an afternoon. A bit harrowing for my tastes, but you proved your worth and forced me to swallow my own presumptions yet again. You are ever a surprising one. Take care. And heed Lurien's every sparse word. He is likely a greater instructor than I'll ever be." Ogrim patted the top of my head, and then swept into a bow.

Yet again, Lurien repeated his command. It came from over his departing shoulder, terse and sharp. But this time no friction held me in place. Instead, a force like a strong gust pressed against my back, setting me into a trot.

Lurien halted beside the elevator shaft and pulled the glittering lever. He did so with such meticulous slowness that its every inner mechanism clicked sequentially in a cascading melody. We waited as the chains jangled and the elevator ascended from deep below.

Behind us, the two Knights' voices were made audible only by the echo of the chamber.

"Will you forgive it?" Ogrim asked.

"For what? Besting me? I have given my answer."

"No, for forcing this side of yourself into the light, even if only before Lurien and I."

Isma scoffed. "Lurien was already well-versed in my history. And no duress compelled me to explain myself, it was my choice. I had always intended to tell you of this, but the correct moment just never seemed to arrive…"

"Yes, but had the Vessel not wounded you so, would you not—"

"Ogrim!" Isma blurted. "It is quite cruel of you to assail me with these questions while I am so drained. When you are next on the brink of death I will make sure to harry you in kind. Now, enough of this matter, please. The task that I have to offer is of no small importance. And it must be done in secret. Not a single witness. Do you understand?"

"Very well. It is not my intent to vex you." Ogrim said. "Now, what do you require of me? Although it seems an ominous request, I vow that your secret will be kept."

"Good…" Isma said. The echoes died for an instant. "I am not so proud that I would deny the facts. I am weakened, and in sore need of my grove. It is no short jaunt away, and as much as I wish to, I cannot rally even a single step. So, with that said, would you… carry me there?"

"Would I?" Ogrim's laugh danced along the walls. "Of course. But why the insistence on secrecy?"

"You know. Bugs will talk, it is their way. I do not wish the commoners to see us in such a state."

"There was an ample crowd at the mustering grounds," Ogrim mused. "Word of your injury will surely spread. I do not understand the point in attempting to conceal what is already known."

"No, that is not—" Isma cleared her throat. "Y-Yes, well, warrior bugs are a different lot from the squeamish citizens of The City. Hearing of a Knight's weakness and witnessing it firsthand are two very different things."

"Nonsense," Ogrim rumbled. "Take last month for example. After my tumble into that bed of mushrooms, was it not you that dragged my stunned bulk out of the Fungal Wastes and through The City's streets? The commoners did not wail and claw at their shells upon sight of my failure."

"Humor me," Isma murmured.

"Fair enough. In any case, I call this moment a lucky stroke. I am offered a chance to repay one of my many debts!"

Isma gave a cry, drawn between a squeak and a shriek. "That was far too rash! I was not prepared!"

Again, Ogrim's laughter rebounded. "How might I ferry you to your repose, fair lady? Upon my honor, I will not rest til you arrive in safety."

"Careful that you do not choke on your own delight," Isma said, almost a chuckle. "I would appreciate it if you remained to the side streets and alleys. From there we might find a passage into the Royal Waterways where we are more likely to go unseen. And… take the stairs if you would, please. Elevators and I are not the dearest of friends."

"So, it shall be," Ogrim said.

The voices faded, replaced by the sound of two heavy feet crackling through the dead foliage.

And I turned—unbidden—to snatch a glimpse of Ogrim's back as he departed through the garden's far exit, Isma in his arms.

With a clang, the elevator slammed to a stop before us, drawing my attention. Within it, standing serenely was the attendant bug. He initiated a vibrant bow, but faltered upon noticing the state of the garden. His eyelids flickered for several seconds before he completed his bow and gestured us inside. He looked from Lurien to the garden in quick succession, but did not speak.

Rain battered the window as we ascended, and with my restored strength I did not stumble or fall. We passed several floors, but none possessed doorways, only stone statues of Lurien gazing back in blind vigilance.

Without warning, the elevator jerked still, so violently that our feet briefly left the floor. The room before us was murky and gray, devoid of Lumafly lanterns. Lurien stepped out, beyond the reach of the elevator's feeble light. And I followed. He did not glance back at the attendant, and soon the clangor of chains announced the elevator's departure.

Lurien approached the vague shape of a table and sifted through the dark. He took something up in his hands and the scream of metal upon metal filled the air, accompanied by a shower of sparks. The red pinpricks swirled and frolicked, eventually winking out of existence. In their aftermath came the gentle quiver of flame—a candle—first one, then two, then a dozen, all lightning successively and casting a dull glow upon the room.

The personal quarters of Lurien the Watcher came into focus. They were capacious yet cluttered, lacking any sense of organization or purpose. Bookcases, chairs, desks, and work tables amalgamated into a labyrinth of fine woods and metal. Reams of garnet silk were scattered upon the floors and served as carpet. The candles that illuminated the discord shared in it, and were perched haphazardly on furniture, metal poles, and slabs of chiseled stone.

Rain-streaked windows encircled the quarters, separated only by supporting arches. They looked out over every region of The City, though much of the landscape was made inscrutable by shadow.

Lurien took a long moment to scan the room, as if seeing it for the first time. He turned to me and nodded, almost meekly. "Come?"

We weaved past scroll-strewn shelves and lustrous sculptures. Lurien took up a candle, pinching it between two fingers, and pointed from time to time at passing objects. Gilded scales, armor-plated urns, and an easel supporting a half-finished painting. One object in particular caught Lurien's attention and he stopped before a table, upon which sat an orb of glass fused onto a golden disc. Within the orb floated a bead of pure white that twisted and undulated like a living thing, adopting a new, fantastical shape with every passing second. It resembled the energies that had often floated about Isma, but this was far more substantial, condensed into something real.

At the sight of it I began to ache, deep in my chest.

"Hunger?" Lurien asked. The singular eye of his mask was trained upon me. He waited, as if for a reply that would never come.

An eager, black maw opened within me, but I did not reach out.

He slid the golden disc across the table. "Eat," he said. And tipped it over the side. The disc fractured against the tile and the glass exploded into a hundred pieces, scattering beneath the bookcases. The nebulous, pale energy—the SOUL—fled its prison and expanded into the open air.

But the maw within me latched onto the newest command and opened wider, to the point that I felt I might split apart. The SOUL floundered like a beached fish, and a spectral wind set the nearby scrolls to fluttering. In a flash of light, the SOUL vanished into me. Warmth suffused my shell, and the maw cracked shut.

"Better," Lurien said. He tilted his head and set off down another isle, removing the glass shards from his path with a push of his foot.

At the far side of the room, beside an open window, stood a huge apparatus of interlocking metal tubes and panes of glass. The thing was angled downward toward The City. Lurien approached it, with more haste than I had ever witnessed from him, and he halted at its lower end beside a backless chair. "Look!" He said, the acoustics of the room made his voice a giant. "Come! Sit!"

I did as I was bid, and he adjusted the small end of the apparatus so that it was parallel with my mask. The small, distorted lens glimmered dully with reflected candlelight.

Lurien tapped the lens. "Look," he insisted.

I leaned forward. And saw The City. The rain and billowing mist disguised much, but The City's tall buildings and twinkling Lumafly lampposts were unmistakable. At Lurien's touch, the apparatus pivoted on well-oiled joints, and the image changed. I spied the tiny, pointed figures of guards patrolling the streets, and commoner bugs huddled together beneath an awning. Again, the view changed and I saw Hegemol marching at the head of a great host, Dryya at his side. Warrior bugs wielding Nails and lances followed him into the mouth of a tunnel.

Lurien lifted the eyepiece, seeming content with his presentation. He looked out over The City and approached the railing before the open window. In the far distance, the centipedal cluster of lights—Hegemol's army—had begun to disappear beyond the bounds of The City's cavern.

And we stood there for a time, watching the starry trail grow shorter. "Come," Lurien eventually said.

We passed through an innocuous door beside a plinth of stone. Beyond was a room, much smaller than the last, but even more cluttered. There were no curios or oddities, merely a pedestal and a tall chair. Stacked all about them were the discarded shells of lesser bugs. They were sheared flat on one side and served a purpose much like a scroll. Many were covered with cream-colored paint, in the smooth, swirling patterns of some written language.

Lurien sat at the chair and drew a bucket of paint out from behind the pedestal. He rummaged for a moment, then placed an unmarked scroll-shell before himself. "Read," he whispered.

In one fluid motion, Lurien dipped his spindly finger into the bucket and flourished it like a quill. The white contrasted with the blackness of his hand as he scribbled upon the surface of the shell. Arches and lines and circles collected into a cumulative message.

One that I could… somehow understand.

 _Vessel. We are at last alone and I am granted a moment to gather my thoughts. Words are ever a toil, thus this medium shall instead enable our rapport. For I know beyond doubt that you comprehend it. Just as I did._

Lurien dipped his finger again, swirling the paint into a slow whirlpool. The chair sat too high for him, and his feet kicked almost imperceptibly at they dangled.

 _A great destiny looms over us. You. And I. And the others that might dare to call themselves Dreamers. By the will of our great King, we are to serve a purpose incomparable in consequence. Ultimate in sacrifice. And that destiny grows close. The candle of our nation gutters, and we possess not the time nor the privilege to delay._

A slow breath echoed from beneath Lurien's mask. He flexed his fingers and freshened his makeshift quill.

 _I have watched your progress._ _I_ _t is my_ _King-given purpose_ _._ _From seed to egg to nascent chrysalis, I witnessed your growth and the potential it_ _betokened_ _. The King is transcendent in his sculpting_ _art. P_ _erfection_ _brushes_ _you in a way yet unseen_ _in our kind_ _._ _And joy booms from_ _the King's_ _heart as a great drum in the deepest burrow._ _But y_ _ou and I—_

The paint ran dry upon Lurien's finger. He scraped futilely to complete his thought, before dipping back into the bucket and resuming. His writing grew faster by the second.

— _But you and I bear much the same mark. I see it in you as clearly as through my grand telescope. And know that such a mark is no blessed thing. In my forging long ago, the King espied in me that odious sign. And though I once shared the same purpose as you, such an honor was stripped of me upon discovery of my defect._

Lurien's strokes consumed the last visible space upon the scroll-shell, and he batted it off the pedestal. A chitinous crunch resounded as it hit the ground, and Lurien replaced it with another blank.

 _The King took great pains—invested much of himself—to hollow your being and gouge the frailty from your shell. Just as he did mine. But though He pursues ideal in all His implacable fervor, true flawlessness is not our perquisite. Not even you, born of the King's own quintessence._

A pause. Another application of paint.

 _Time is too short. My resplendent Lord perceives in you a long-awaited triumph, no matter the mark that festers within. Too much has he supped on failure. Too many has he offered to the slavering jaws of ambition only to receive nothing in return. He shall not see your truth. He shall not see your flaw. And lamentably, it is not this Watcher's station to voice dissension. For a word unwanted is a word unheard._

Lurien hung his head, in contemplation or stupor it was impossible to tell. His hand twitched and white dripped from his digits. Minutes passed, but eventually he stirred and collected another swipe of paint.

 _The mark within is a cancer of its own. It is not born of the affliction, but serves as its antithesis. Many would call it boon, but for we instruments of the King it is a thing most hated. It is mind. It is will. It is voice. And you, Vessel, must not allow it to sully your purpose. You shall become the pillar upon which this kingdom teeters. And you must never fracture. Too many lives, too grand a future rests on what you must become. And so I beg. Please—_

Lurien stopped. He dug his sharp finger into the surface of the scroll-shell until it cracked like glass, and then turned to me, placing his hand upon my shoulder. Paint smeared my cloak. With a force that his decrepit arm seemed incapable of, he pressed down on me. "Serve," he hissed. "Thoughtless. Eternal. For King. For Bug. For Hallownest."

I was gripped by something. Lurien's words came to me like a constricting beast. They crushed me within my own shell, tyrannical and uncompromising. If any shard of thought lingered within me, then it was obliterated on the spot.

The chair screeched as Lurien rose. He braced nearly all his weight upon the pedestal, as if standing were simply too much. "Come," he breathed. "King." He pushed back to his full height, swaying toward the door and the chamber beyond.

And I followed. It was my purpose…


	6. Chapter 6

6

Lurien's fingers brushed the pale metal of the corridor, eliciting a keening note that gamboled and skipped as we turned corners and descended staircases. The passages of the White Palace bifurcated before us like a root system, with intersections devoid of signposts or symbols. Yet this did little to hinder Lurien's journey. His movement was devoid of hesitation, and he did not look back to ensure that I kept pace.

Hall by hall, chamber by chamber, the palace revealed itself, in all its gleaming ornamentation. Filigree wormed around pillars, tracery spilled down windows, and the winged seal of Hallownest was omnipresent. A glow—that seemed to be born from nothing—bathed every object and hurled glaring reflections into my eyes. Plants sprouted from cracks in the ceilings and floors. They were bleached and reedy, often forming in clusters before doorways and clinging to the shells of passersby.

The bugs that we encountered along our path shared in Lurien's sureness of direction, as if some intrinsic understanding of the place infused them. They scurried to and fro, their vestigial wings swishing over the floors like capes. In their silvered arms they carried silk scrolls, tools, and victuals. They performed mid-step bows and mumbled words of reverence to Lurien before vanishing down perpendicular passages.

Their haste was incongruous with the Palace's quietude.

We emerged from the crush of one attendant-clogged tunnel into a domed chamber containing a fountain. Upon the fountain stood a sculpture, composed of an alien metal that leaked light though its interstices as if a sun were trapped within. The statue depicted the Pale King, limbs tucked tightly within the folds of his robe.

Lurien paused to observe it, dipping an absent hand into the sterile waters.

As I waited, a sweetness pricked the edge of my shell, setting my hunger into motion. For, about the room floated scintillating motes of Soul, finer than any dust. They churned in the air around the statue, like a billion orbiting planets. And one by one they were drawn into it, each mote increasing the statue's luminosity by an iota.

Lurien flicked his fingers free of water and followed the trail of my gaze. He hesitated for an instant before lifted a gesturing palm toward the statue.

"Reservoir," he said. "Ancient design." Lurien paused as if to collect more words but shrugged and resumed his step. "Come. King."

We arrived before a pair of doors that soared up to touch the vaulted ceiling overhead. Beside them stood a creature, resembling the Great Knights in shape, but not in substance. It loomed tall and thin, with a shell of jagged metal. Luminous, white eyes bore out of the seething pit of black that was its face. At our approach it blocked the doors and brandished a scythe with its four arms. No words escaped it, but the shapeless specter of a whisper bubbled in my head.

Lurien broke his stride just long enough to glance at the thing, and it twitched as if pulled by invisible strings. With a ringing stomp of feet, it stood aside and planted the haft of its scythe on the ground. The massive doors swung open without so much as a gust of air.

We stepped through into a small, modestly-furnished room enveloped in a canopy of plant life. The King was within, but he did not react to our intrusion. He stood beside a high-backed chair in which someone sat. From my place I could not see its occupant, but a mellifluous voice powdered the room. "Oh, Wyrm. You heap yet more burden upon your brow. To mend this Kingdom in the manner that you seek is no mild task. Other paths remain before you. An accord may still be struck. Light might yet permit your rule, so long as her animus is not impeded. Grant a small concession. End this feud. The moth tribe would make a fine libation and their lands bear little consequence." The voice offered a petite chuckle. "Though Light might regard that as restitution and not libation."

The King reached out to brace an arm against the chair. His shoulders sank like an overburdened bridge. "No concession in a game of gods is small, my Root. It is true that Light fixates upon her ancient enemy. But should she triumph in her crusade, what then? Without gloom to check a candle, its blaze would blind the world. I have seen such futures; none can I accept."

The voice hummed disapprovingly. "But if that foreboding rings true, would not Void possess the same means if freed of its foe? To blind the world?"

"Despite her primitive nature, Light is yet a being of Essence. Of Mind. She executes her will as any thinking thing might, but Void embodies her antipode. It lacks focus. And as such, it is no threat."

"I am no courtier to be mollified and shooed aside, dear Wyrm." A vine, white as marble, rose up to drape over the chair's armrest. "Your lies spill most sour indeed."

The King winced. "I would not stoop to deception. My aim is merely to soothe. Precautions are in place such that you need not fear for the Kingdom. I say in earnest. Void is no threat to you."

The vine wrapped around the King's wrist and gave it the slightest squeeze. "My fear is not for myself nor for the Kingdom. It is for you. The dream you hope to realize is beyond any god. The sacrifices already made pale before what is demanded. The commoners, in their adoration, believe their Pale King immutable, but even now you—"

"Enough!" The King pulled his arm away, and the vine curled out of sight. "I shall not indulge this subject again. You know my intent. To the end."

The voice fell. "Yes. I know. But is equilibrium truly so chimerical a thing? Does no vision of peace reside within your eyes?"

The King stiffened. "Among the gods and lords I am called 'Usurper'. I have laid claim upon their territory and their power. They bear me no love. And neither do they you. What of your war with Unn in the earliest age? Was your claim not unjust to her reckoning? Would she have consented to parley with such an invader?"

The voice fell again, growing sullen. "You need not remind me… A seed does not know where it germinates. A root does not know where it burrows. When my mind came to me the war was already won, and Unn had faded to her exile."

"Light abides no rival that might pilfer her flock," the King continued. "And the petty kingdoms of this land would rather fall to ruin than see another crown rise. If they possessed the prowess, then Hallownest would be dashed against the stones, no matter its ideal. There shall be no concession. Hallownest shall rule. Eternal. Or it shall become dust."

"I too yearn to see your hope manifested. But beware. As you reach toward glory—the sort that would eclipse even the greatness of your former life—take care not to exceed your grasp, lest you plummet like the thousand kings before you."

The King took a breath as if to summon a rebuttal. But let it go, replying instead with a single nod.

"But enough of this unsavory talk," the voice continued. "Perhaps it best we concern ourselves with other affairs. If my roots sing true, then a guest has shuffled into our midst. Watcher Lurien, is it you that idles about our fractious discourse?"

With a rustle of leaves and a rasp of plant fibers, the chair's occupant rose. Its form was svelte and lofty, draped in loose-fitting strips of gray silk. No mask adorned its face, and no shell safeguarded its body. It was unlike a bug in every way. For it possessed not arms but vines, not legs but a trunk, and not horns but a nest of branches that thrust upward like the tributaries of a celestial river. Luminescence—that dwarfed even the King's—permeated the air about it, muting the shadowed corners of the room.

Lurien startled at the call of his name and stepped forward. He bowed low, just as the attendant bug in his spire had, to the point that his mask nearly scraped the floor. "White Lady," he whispered, as if the sound of his voice were an insult.

The lofty thing—the White Lady—inclined her head in greeting. Her glacial, nacreous eyes fixed him for an instant before wandering to me. "You come bearing my spawn," she observed. "Rarely is one given reason to venture so deeply into the palace." She turned. "Wyrm, is this the Vessel of which you spoke?"

The King seated himself at another high-backed chair opposite the Lady's. "Indeed. It is unparalleled in form, hollowed more completely by Void than any else yet seen. Do you feel its potential? As a beating heart."

The White Lady knelt upon the ground, to the groan of her trunk and the hiss of her silken shawls. She extended the vines of her arms at me and whispered. "Come."

In a blink, the bonds of Lurien's previous command evaporated. And I staggered forward, almost faster than my feet could manage. The Lady's vines encircled my shoulders and held me fast. They were soft. Faintly warm to the touch.

"Would that I could recall the seed from which it blossomed," the Lady said. "But I speak of the impossible. My progeny has fallen more numerous than droplets in the rain." She stroked the side of my head and lifted my chin so that I would look her in the eyes. "The Void has indeed done its work upon this one. What remains of our offering is but shell now. As is required of its grim task. And yet… I spy a striking nobility in its stance. Much like its father's. Perhaps too much."

And she released me, suddenly, the warmth banished as if by a winter gust. She stood and stepped away, leaving me devoid of purpose.

"You are certain it is faultless?" the Lady asked.

The King roused from some reverie. "Yes," he murmured. "The only perfection we two shall conceive."

"Then the pit is sealed," the Lady stated.

"Indeed."

"Eternally?"

The King cocked his head. "Never again shall mortal eyes behold the refuse of our labor. As was promised."

"And into that pit, how many excursions did you make, Wyrm? To retrieve. To dispose."

"As many as was made necessary."

"But the number, do you recall?"

"Many," the King said, cold and flat.

The Lady pressed two vines against her cheeks. "Not once did these eyes behold that refuse. And now they never shall. Was that a duty shirked? An act of cowardice?"

"Our compact entailed no such burden upon you. The offering of seeds was your only concern. It is ill advised to brood."

"But is it not the task of a progenitor to witness where its seeds might fall? To ensure the fertility of the earth, the kiss of the sun. Lest…" And her gaze drifted once again to me.

The King rested his chin upon a fist. "Lady. You brook no lies nor illusions. But only in they shall you find solace, if that is what you seek. Our deed is done. And no matter all the power in the cosmos, it shall not be undone. Do not succumb to regret. At this moment above all others."

The Lady crossed the room in a ponderous fashion, the roots of her trunk-like body working collectively to drag her along. From atop a modest pedestal she retrieved a silk-lined basin of silver carved in the likeness of a shell. She resumed her seat and gazed down into the basin's confines. "If the Vessel proves true, and our toil is indeed over, then what shall become of this one?" She tilted the basin, revealing a small object—ovate and milky white—nestled in the silk. The object's surface was irregular, like a thin layer of bark, and it sparkled in the room's ambient light. "This seed has incorporated your quintessence more fully than any other. I had thought it might serve as a suitable nucleus for a superior Vessel. But now…"

The King was motionless.

"Should you triumph over Light and Void, should all our impediments be surmounted, then a glorious future awaits this Kingdom. Perhaps this seed might have a place in it. We would nurture it, as our first, true child. And one amongst my progeny would finally… endure."

"Dispose of it."

"What!?"

"I am not misheard," the King whispered. "That seed is to be discarded."

"Wyrm!"

"The conditions of our union stand. Neither in prosperity nor in desolation was an heir born of my quintessence promised. And none shall be given. If you claim to perceive my ambition—to abet it—then this verdict should come as no revelation."

"You would deny me this slightest thing?" the Lady hissed. "Why?"

"Hallownest must not be harrowed by the rot that is succession. There must be no lineage to track, no bloodline to justify rule. No excuse for dissidence. Only one sacrosanct need sit upon the throne. Forever."

"So, it is fear then." The Lady pressed the basin tight against her trunk. "Of this little thing's divinity."

"Fear? I am compelled by no such weakness."

The Lady laughed, one hard note that reverberated through my shell. "This is your child! Do you truly foresee such maliciousness from it? The same foreseen in Light? Or those guiltless grubs?"

"Yes, Lady. I do." The King bowed his head. "Such is the weight of prescience."

"To the pit with your prescience! Among your futures you spy not _one_ where this heir grows to be your ally and not your bane?"

The King was quiet for a time. "Not one. Now, again I ask. I… beg. Destroy it."

The Lady's roots cracked the tile beneath her trunk. "Is your contempt for your own offspring so absolute?"

"It is not contempt that—!" The King stopped. Collected himself. "No. It is not contempt. It is not fear. It is purpose. Inexorable purpose that shall not be hindered by pain nor cost."

"Then what of Herrah?" The Lady's branches quivered. "The Deep Queen made her terms most apparent when the mantle of Dreamer was first offered her. And now, as if by whim she aligns herself with our purpose. I am not so blind, and I should hope you not to presume me so. This dalliance of yours—the royal offspring that shall be its result—bears the very same threat to your sanctity as this meager seed. Why do you hurl these hypocrisies at me?"

"A Dreamer's duty is eternal service, a stasis made worse than death. What favorable bargain might be struck with such a dire demand? For all the wealth and power in this worldly frame, Herrah would not see herself bought. Her obsession is to but one end, and desperation required that I provide it, no matter how it might threaten me."

"And none more suitable could be found?" the Lady asked. "Those that would play gatekeeper to your Vessel without first asking the sun and the stars?"

The King chuckled. "You ask questions of which you are already versed. Though Lurien's vow was destined, Monomon's came as sheer fortune. Well are you aware that _three_ Dreamers are requisite. Vespa served as the final recourse. And our offer evinced naught but scorn. Thus, the pact with Herrah remains."

"Fine! Then when all is done, what shall you have? To the very end, nothing to call child but a mere bastard, hidden away lest it threaten your rule?"

The King's gaze settled on me. "I shall call Hallownest my child. And it shall grow as no other offspring could ever hope."

With a creak the Lady leaned in over the basin. She cupped the seed between two vines. "Ages have dawned and died since our first meeting, Wyrm," she said, with a defeated sigh. "Then, you stood a shining beacon in a realm of senseless night. And though at first, promise alone bound us, admiration bloomed within me as the most eager of buds. Know that I am yours. Forever more. But do _not_ exploit my fervent heart. When all pretense is forsaken, Herrah's aim is my own: an offspring, a _child_. No simple shell, no tawdry spawn that shall not survive two seasons, let alone a lifetime. Before even this foul undertaking, I had borne legions, only to witness them wither and die. The ember of Essence does not kindle in beings so small, so evanescent." Her grip tightened upon the seed. "And I grow weary, so weary, of outliving them. When shall I have what is promised, Pale King? How long shall I languish?"

Time stretched, but the King offered no reply. He did not meet the Lady's eyes as she glanced up at him.

"And you shan't tell me," the Lady muttered. "Prescience fails again. How felicitous. But even still… in you my trust is planted. To the end."

With a sudden twist of her vines, the Lady crushed the seed to powder and cast it upon the floor. The particulates glittered briefly, and the Lady watched them until they became indistinguishable from dust. "Behold," she said, her voice thick. "Yet another foe of Hallownest is vanquished. A jubilant turn for the Kingdom; no longer is its stability imperiled." The Lady wiped her vines, rose, and returned the basin to its pedestal.

The King pressed his hand against his mask and released a ragged breath.

In the ensuing silence Lurien rocked from foot to foot, periodically scuffing at the seed remnants upon the ground. "King?" he inquired. "Vessel?" He extended a finger toward me, as if to affirm my existence.

"Yes, Watcher," the King said, straightening. "Your prudence returns us to our purpose. Battle was not the design of this audience. Instead, we gather here to mark the Vessel's growth. So, step forth Lurien, that I might construe its deeds."

With atypical haste, Lurien trotted to the King's side and sank gracefully into a kneeling pose. He lifted his head, displaying the one-eyed mask to the King. But Lurien did not speak. He offered no verbal report at all. The King simply stared down at him with singular scrutiny.

A still moment passed, and then the King released a wisp of a chuckle. "Exquisite. Truly. It transcends all expectation. Mere days free of its prison, and already it displays mastery over Shade." He turned to the Lady, almost mirthful. "Root! This Vessel has claimed victory over Great Knight Isma in single combat—at the apex of her power! Never before has a—"

"Is my purpose here fulfilled?" the Lady asked, puncturing the King's words. "I would depart if so. A needless thing is a curator to an empty nursery."

"I perceive your pain," the King said. "It cuts most deeply. But do you not esteem yourself to be my prime adviser? Upon us rests the encumbrance of choice. To hone this Vessel's shell, it need be assigned a fitting tutor and a worthy challenge. Quell your sorrow, if for but a time. I beseech your counsel, as always."

The Lady lingered by the basin. Her vines strained against its shape as if attempting to shatter it. "Duty does not relent," she whispered. But in a bolder voice, "The path you behold is evident. To both our eyes. Neither approval nor reproach—even from your White Lady—would see you diverted. The counsel you seek is but the echo of a deserted room."

"Strike at me if it so salves your hurt, but still I would know your mind on this. Do you believe power enough resides within this Vessel to endure the trials of the Great Knights?"

"Ever shall it ring odd to hear question subsumed in your voice, Wyrm. You, gleaner of time's fickle secrets, yet eternally stricken with uncertainty." The Lady released her grip on the basin. Her body slackened. "I do not impugn your claims of the Vessel's might. It is the pinnacle of our efforts. But among the previous pinnacles all fell short before Dryya. Knowing this, you shall still send it forth with my Knight. Such is your foregone resolution. And though superfluous, I am in accord with this path. I do not feign to know what shall transpire, only that the outcome shall ordain our fates."

"Your blessing is most welcome." the King said. "But the blaze within that Fierce Knight of yours denies me any supremacy. The White Lady's will alone stirs her step. _You_ must dispatch her."

"It is no secret that Dryya thinks ill of your grand inventions. But she is tied to them as surely as is the Kingdom. When she returns from the Mantis War, she shall test the Vessel's merits. Thus, I pledge."

The King nodded. "And as a lump of ore upon a master's anvil, the Vessel shall approach its perfect form. To become a tool… utterly Pure."

The King's words drew the Lady's attention to me, but with an intensity unlike anything before. The blue of her eyes pierced to my core like the point of a sapphire Nail. My breathing came in gasps, as if a stone were pressing down upon my chest. "Though called a tool _—_ and wielded as such—what is Void but a weapon?" the Lady asked. "As quick to cut friend as foe. Tell me. Did this one _defeat_ Isma, or _slay_ her?"

The King rose and stood beside the Queen. He too watched me, but his gaze did not crush my shell. "To best a god, one must dabble in parlous forces. Were I to inform you of Isma's demise, would it annul your pledge?"

"Do not toy with me," the Lady said, her eyes narrowing. "If you seek to probe my limits, then you shall learn them in due haste."

"A fair censure," the King admitted, with a slight bow of his head. "My apologies. It is a Wyrm's nature to delve, no matter the torment that such an act might bring. I offer in truth, that Isma survived, but by a margin most narrow. Should you dispatch Dryya on this quest, then a similar threat shall loom over her. Are you prepared to wager your fondest companion? One whose devotion exceeds even my own?"

The Lady ruminated for a time. "Sacrifice begets sacrifice. And gambit begets gambit. Countless shards of yourself have you surrendered. And countless offspring have I. From the beginning you have wagered your Kingdom. And now shall I wager my Dryya. Not in good conscience may I do less…"

"Very well. Then we—"

"But," the Lady said. "I shall not endanger my favored champion any more than need be. I ask that she not travel alone."

"Little can be spared in this age of peril," the King mused. "The forces of Hallownest grow thin as a membranous wing. But still, convey your wish and it shall be done."

"Only a fellow Great Knight shall suffice as escort. Nothing less and nothing more."

"Acceptable. Then, four—" The King paused. "Three choices are before you."

The lady Closed her eyes in contemplation. "Despite his great strength," she muttered. "Hegemol tires most easily. He shall seek hibernation at the conclusion of this war. And Isma's talents shine most brightly in the aftermath of conflict. She shall be occupied with the wounded."

"You request Ogrim, then?" The King asked. "Indeed, his presence at Isma's duel proved her salvation. But…"

The Lady tilted her head. "'But'?"

"When first he ascended to Knighthood, Loyal Ogrim beheld in me righteousness and truth. He balked at no command, for in his noble mind I embodied all that was good. But now my grievous deeds are made known to him. And I am tarnished in his eyes."

"That is not so rare an occasion. No Great Knight returned from the pit unshaken, though they oft donned bravado's mask."

The King stood as rigid as steel. "Those same Great Knights chained themselves to my vision, not for its virtue but its power. Yet, Ogrim desires no perfect realm, no absolute dominion, merely a world devoid of dishonor. And if such a wish cannot be realized within me, then he shall seek it elsewhere."

"You suspect his epithet undeserved?" the Lady asked.

But the King did not respond.

"You speak of your many futures, then?" she prodded. "One known? Or merely dreaded?"

"Yes," the King whispered.

Something between a scoff and a laugh escaped the Lady. "A goodly heart beats in Loyal Ogrim's chest. Though dilemma may batter his reason, and though foresight is no agent of mine. I shall trust Dryya's care to his claws. Such is the wild faith upon which we earthly beings rely."

The King turned to the great doors. They opened soundlessly before him. "As you wish…"


	7. Chapter 7

It was a bug of some sort, but different. Not a commoner or an attendant. Not a warrior or a Knight. It did not even stand upon two legs as the bugs of the Kingdom did, but instead hopped about on six. Out of the overlapping plating of its back sprouted a pair of wings. They were shriveled and useless but flapped with every hop. Its belly, a fluid-filled sack exposed to the open air, stood out vividly orange against the lifelessness of the landscape.

By restless instinct, the bug patrolled one clifftop after another. Its pointed feet and lance-like proboscis pierced into the stone with every impact, leaving a permanent record of its passage. Something like ash tumbled out of the gray sky over its head, in slender flakes that collected on the ground and muted the echoes of its hopping. Periodically the bug stopped as it came to a vantage point over the plunging chasms. It leaned and strained against the rigidity of its own body, searching. But whatever it sought with those shell-veiled eyes went unfound.

For something descended from on high. A streaking, silver shadow punctured the bug's body, down through its back and out the gory, orange mess of its stomach. A thin shriek rent the air, and the bug's legs beat a hideous rhythm against the stone. It lashed out and up with its proboscis, but the inflexible plating about its neck made the gesture futile. With a thrust and a twist, the assailant brought the bug's noises to a halt, and its life ebbed away.

Fierce Knight Dryya stepped back from the slain bug. She swung her Long-Nail through the air and splattered blood like the clumsy stroke of a paintbrush. Her armor rasped faintly as she looked about, scanning the clifftop for threats.

Upon my perch, at the edge of a cliff far above, I observed as I had been bidden. I watched the discipline and efficiency of Dryya's movements, both in and out of combat. She took great care with the economy of every tilt to her head or heft of her Nail. It seemed as if she were constantly poised to begin a duel that she expected to last for eons.

"Superlative!" Ogrim blurted out of the silence, startling a nearby nest of Maskflys. "What felicity this day is!" He was sitting beside me, legs tucked beneath his round shell, gaze set as firmly upon Dryya as mine. "It is a rare treat to bear witness to the sword skills of the Fierce Knight! Even I, a fellow Great, have seen it only twice. I count myself a lucky bug. And you should as well, Little Knight."

I offered Ogrim a glance before returning to my task. Dryya's will weighed heavily upon me, and the urge to observe was overwhelming.

"We two seem to be common companions of late," Ogrim observed. "It is the King's will, of course, but to what end I cannot fathom. He ordered we Knights to provide instruction so that you might aid the Kingdom, that much I know, but my presence is a feeble thing when matched against the likes of Isma or Dryya. The lessons I might offer would be of no use to one such as you. And yet here I sit…" He ruminated for a time, his posture growing more and more hunched.

Dryya completed her survey and craned her neck to lock eyes with me from across the trench. She pointed at the ground beside her with the tip of her Long-Nail, but no command smoldered in my head. I continued to observe, unmoving.

Ogrim discarded his thoughts with a shake and hopped to his feet. "It appears we are summoned." He leaned forward to peer over the cliff's edge and into the spiraling depths. Far, far below rested a small lake of greenish acid that sizzled and popped as it made contact with the flakes of ash. "No time for a leisurely descent, I'd wager. But worry not. The gap may appear harrowing, but it is no great obstacle for those lordly wings of yours. Have you already come to master them in the scant time that we've been apart? As I recall, your flight out of the pit was a trace… wobbly."

I did not reply, remaining focused on Dryya. She jabbed her Nail a second time, more emphatically.

"It is unwise to keep that one waiting," Ogrim cautioned. "For all her wisdom and strength, Dryya's grasp of patience is that of a novice. She is said to be an ancient, the eldest of the Great Knights. One would expect a bug with such a wealth of years to exercise more forbearance…"

Dryya shouted something up at us, but her words were lost in the chasm's gusts.

"What is it, Little Knight?" Ogrim asked. "Are you fatigued? Or could it be that hesitance stays your step?" He eyed the gap a second time, gauging the distance. "It took but a word to send your rushing into battle against Isma. Yet, are you stopped now by a mere height?"

I said nothing.

Ogrim clacked his claws ponderously. "I suppose that even one as valiant as you might conceal a private fear."

The scream of metal rebounded against the chasm walls as Dryya buried her Long-Nail into the stone at her feet. She pointed a third—and seemingly final—time.

Ogrim waited a second, and then chuckled. "Well, if you are unwilling to carry yourself, then perhaps I have found my purpose in being here." He crouched before me and locked his claws behind his back, presenting them as a foothold. "Climb aboard, Little Knight. I will make short work of this dreaded ravine. You needn't fret. I will not fail."

Though fragile, little more than a whisper, Ogrim's order took hold of me. I rose, planted my feet in the crook of his claws, and wrapped my arms around his neck.

Ogrim's chuckle bloomed into a hearty laugh, and he leapt from the clifftop with only a single step of momentum. The wind made a plaything of my cloak as we plummeted toward Dryya.

At first, it appeared that we would not clear the gap, and the roiling lake of acid rushed at us. But Ogrim threw out a barbed claw and caught the edge of the cliff upon which Dryya stood. A shearing crunch sent gravel tumbling, but we lurched to a stop. Ogrim loosed a sound of pain, yet his claw remained firmly embedded into the stone.

"Climb up," Ogrim grunted. "I will join you shortly."

Though I possessed enough force to jump up to Dryya's side, Ogrim's command guided me, and I made a scrambling ascent of the rock face. Dusty and scuffed, I rose unsteadily to my feet.

"You did not acknowledge my summons," Dryya said, arms crossed. "Even the lowliest of the other Vessels accomplished that."

Ogrim puffed and labored against gravity, hauling himself to the cliff top with a great gasp. A cloud of ash billowed about him as he sprawled onto his back and stared into the sky. "Now I better understand your fear, Little Knight." He paused to breathe. "That feat was more alarming than I anticipated. A running start might have better served me…"

"Fear?" Dryya asked.

"Yes, I believe our champion in training grapples with that particular adversary." Ogrim rested his claws on his chest. "Odd that a thing with wings would hesitate so, but I have no right to cast judgment. In my youth I harbored my fair share of silly terrors."

"Do not be foolish, Ogrim. Vessels cannot fear. If that is a great strength or a terrible weakness, I known not. But they are incapable of such hesitation."

Ogrim struggled to a sitting position. "Just now, the Little Knight observed your summons quite plainly, but it did not budge. Considering how quickly it has answered all other calls, something must have held it in check. My presumption is fear."

Dryya shrugged. "It simply must not have heard me, for it heeded your command easily enough. If you had ordered it to soar the gap, then it would have done so in an instant."

"Are you so certain?"

"I was told that Isma had educated you about these Vessels. Was I misinformed?"

"Isma and I…" Ogrim cleared his throat. "Experienced a disagreement on that matter."

"You can disagree with the setting sun all you please, but that will not stop the coming night."

Ogrim tilted his head. "Pardon?"

Dryya wrenched her Long-Nail from the stone and wiped it clean of dust. "This exchange is a waste of words. My Lady gave me a task. And enlightening you was not a part of it. Come along, _Loyal_ Knight. You are my escort after all. Lady only knows why…"

With a heave, Ogrim rolled backward and landed deftly on his feet. "If I have offended, then I beg forgiveness. I intended no disrespect."

Dryya waved a dismissive hand through the air and set off toward the gaping mouth of a nearby tunnel. "Come, Vessel," she barked. The serrated edge of her conviction dug into my body, dragging me along like a hooked fish.

The tunnel we traversed was damp and fanged with stalactites and stalagmites. A variety of small, mindless bugs skittered out of our way, seeking shelter beneath tumbled rocks. I watched them closely, the curvature of their shells, the haste with which they clung to life.

Ogrim was the first to break the stretch of silence. He trotted up to Dryya's side and donned an esteeming tone. "You dispatched that Hopper with a superb blow, Fierce Dryya. It was so swift that my woeful reaction could not track it. Do you hunt about Kingdom's Edge frequently? It seems a suitable place to sharpen one's skills."

Dryya did not respond at first. She paused at a fork in the tunnel to consider her path. "I chafe against all this courtly talk. Do not praise me by belittling yourself. I have no purpose for adoration."

"I see. I apolo—"

"Nor do I have purpose for apologies," she snapped.

A chuff of laughter escaped Ogrim. He rubbed at his chin with the flat of a claw and nodded. "Understood."

"But, yes," Dryya said, continuing down the left-most tunnel. "I do invest much of my time in this place. Kingdom's Edge is what remains of the old world, where instinct and strength of claw still reigns. It is so far unchanged by the newest god, but we will see with time."

"What god do you speak of?"

"The King, of course. As He works toward that impenetrable goal of His, the land becomes warped around him. Rarely for the better."

Ogrim processed her words, and when she did not continue, prodded. "Why do you say that?"

"Despite all His romantic intentions, the King weakens those that He touches. The warriors, the commoners, even the low creatures of the earth. Here, beyond where He has staked His claim, bugs still vie against each other in that lethal dance. Every instant is lived a mere step before death's hungry jaws."

"For one in no need of adoration, you speak with some of your own," Ogrim observed. "But is the King's civilization not a favorable thing? A place where the strong protect the weak instead of preying upon them?"

"Perhaps. It is a debate that will not be decided here. But note, that if the weak are not required to protect themselves, then they are never granted the opportunity to become the strong. And if the strong are not regularly challenged by the weak, then they become the weak themselves. That is the reality that the King has wrought."

Ogrim's voice grew faint and thoughtful. "Strength is a useless thing in a peaceful world. It is the greatest hope of a Knight to watch his Nail rust from lack of need."

Dryya scoffed. "I understand why the King is so fond of you."

At that, Ogrim stumbled, catching his weight on a stalagmite. "The King speaks of me? What else has he said to you? Nothing reproving I hope."

"His words were not to me, but to my Lady. She has grown enamored with gossip of late." Dryya shook her head. "So very enamored. I listen dutifully, and She tells me of the King's many triumphs and woes. The picture she paints is… warm. Love truly is a blinding thing."

"I see," Ogrim said, righting himself. "The Pale King is cast in many lights. The distant lands that I once called home whispered of Him as a savior, a realm-builder, a god. Even in the City He is still hailed as such, but among His Knights and advisers… it is different."

"No castle is without imperfection, no matter how it might gleam from afar. One need only step close enough to spy its cracks."

"You do not think very highly of our sovereign," Ogrim murmured.

Dryya slashed at a nest of brambles obstructing our path, felling them in a single swing. "Should you come to know something intimately enough, then you will either adore or abhor it. I have witnessed many mighty warriors die for the King's misconceived visions. You will understand if I do not fawn over him."

Ogrim swallowed a deep breath as if conjuring some confutation, but a moment passed and it did not come. He let the air hiss away and returned to silence.

The tunnel peeled open, and the stalactites gave way to another clifftop much like the one we had left behind. Sheer walls rose above and before us, cutting the sky down to a sliver and casting much of the area in shadow.

Dryya ushered us forward, until our steps kicked rocks and dust over the precipice. Below, curtained in mist, was a canyon. Weathered spires of stone thrust out of it like spikes on a carapace, and thickets of grayish plants made the floor into a forest.

Above, in scattered groups, hovered the swollen forms of yet another sort of bug. Indolent and inattentive, the bugs drifted this way and that, bumping into one another. Upon their backs were affixed three pairs of wings that beat in frenzied tandem to keep them aloft. Some among the bugs observed our appearance, with all the curiosity of a dirt clod.

Ogrim peered down the length of the canyon. "Have we arrived, then?" he asked.

Dryya planted her Long-Nail and rested her wrists on the pommel. "Indeed. This place is a crucible of sorts, where the distinction between predator and prey is made. I will test this Vessel here. Like all the others. Whatever may come."

"Well, we have already wagered our lives and leapt a chasm, what else does your test entail?"

"Skipping that crack was not a part of the test," Dryya sighed. "There are thousands like it in this wasteland."

Ogrim hummed. "Really? Then the Little Knight best overcome its fear of heights quickly. For I doubt you'd allow me to remain its impromptu Stag."

Dryya shot Ogrim a sidelong glare. "You spend too much time with Hegemol. Any more and you threaten to become a clown."

"'When peril steals the strength from your legs, laugh. So that you might take a step forward,'" Ogrim said. "It was you that offered me that wisdom. At the Knotted Grove."

"And I would not have given it had I known it would make you so flippant."

"My good cheer is not mockery, but merely a means to put one foot before the other."

Dryya gestured at me. "You are aware that this 'Little Knight' of which you are so partial is to undergo the challenge and not you, yes?"

Ogrim let out a wavering laugh. "Oh, I am quite aware…"

Dryya made a disdainful noise and grasped the hilt of her Long-Nail in both hands. She drove its tip deeper into the clifftop and began to twist the crosspiece in a clockwise manner. Unseen mechanisms clinked and jangled within the Long-Nail, and as a keening snap rent the air, the blade separated halfway down its length. Dryya stepped back, holding what appeared to be a broken Long-Nail with a tip that resembled a blacksmith's trough. And still embedded into the stone was a second Nail, much shorter than the first, but complete with hilt and pommel.

"Impossible!" Ogrim cried. His gaze snapped from one Nail to the other in such rapid succession that he seemed to grow dizzy. "By what means did you come upon this miracle of Nailsmithing?"

"I must admit that civilization has certain advantages," Dryya said. "The King's artificers redefine 'impossible' with every passing day."

"Oh! Would that I could wield such a thing." Ogrim lowered his eyes to the inarticulate hatchets that were his claws.

"Your natural weapons have their own merits," Dryya said, her voice somewhat softer. "You will never find yourself unarmed in the event of an ambush."

Ogrim chuckled. "A frail consolation."

"But enough of banter," Dryya said. "We are not here for pleasantries." She tore the Short-Nail from the stone with her free hand and tossed it to me. "Take this, Vessel. I am not so cruel that I would send you forth unarmed."

I caught the blade and held it at my side. It was stouter than the one I had wielded in my fight with Isma, less likely to fracture.

Dryya considered me before clearing her throat and squaring her shoulders. "Let us begin. We have wasted too much time already. Listen, Vessel, for I give you a command that you are to follow until the very end, even should that end be your death. Just as I struck down that Hopper moments ago, you are to explore this place in search of another of its sort. Wield that Nail I have provided, and slay the creature with one, cunning blow. The King calls you perfect, but that verdict will fall to me this day. Should you fail, then this place will devour you as it did the others."

"You lay a heavy ultimatum upon the Little Knight," Ogrim whispered. "Isma's method of training was similarly harsh."

"As you have already been told, if the Vessel lacks the power to overcome this challenge, then it is of no use to us. Do you believe this to be any different from the Champion's Call?"

Ogrim bristled. "Yes, actually. And in many ways. From the beginning the consequences of the Call were plain. And we each made our choice. But here, what choice is granted the Little Knight?"

Dryya scoffed. "Anything I might say to you would be but an echo of what you have already refused to acknowledge. Perhaps agreeing to your escort was a mistake. A Kingsmould might have served just as well, or at the very least more quietly."

My grip upon the Short-Nail tightened as Dryya's command flowed into me. A murderous pressure—the same that I had experienced at the mustering grounds—soaked my shell like a rain of hot tar. I looked about for the thing that I might kill. All other objects were muted and insignificant in my vision.

Dryya and Ogrim were only blurs before me. They were unsuitable prey, for they lacked the correct number of limbs, the proboscis, the wings. Overhead, the fat, floating bugs were likewise unfit. Though they possessed the armored shells and six pointed legs, their functional wings invalidated them.

The pressure swelled, as if my chest contained a boiling sea. My search hastened, and just as I tensed in preparation to leap from the cliff and into the canyon below, I spied a creature beside my foot. It was a tiny thing, round-bodied and simple. It did not share the precise size of the creature Dryya had slain, but still had the same traits: six legs, useless wings, an armored body, and a sharp proboscis. It did not hop as it moved, but scuttled from one stone to another, prodding beneath in search of prey of its own.

Without a trace of reluctance, I speared the tiny bug with the tip of the Short-Nail and lifted its still-twitching body to Dryya for inspection. Its orange blood trickled down the blade's length.

With my task complete, Dryya's directive left me, and the killing heat dissipated as quickly as it had appeared. My sight normalized, bringing the world back to focus.

The two Knights were staring at me.

"…Wh…What?" Dryya stammered. She cocked her head to the side, as if the new angle might reveal more information. "Are you—Is that what you consider your prey?"

Ogrim circled around Dryya's statue-like form and crouched beside me. He leaned in close to inspect my kill, lifting the tip of his claw to count its legs. After a pause for reflection, he burst into a resonant guffaw that sent every lesser bug within range scattering. "Behold, Dryya! With its discerning eyes, the Little Knight has already dispatched its quarry. And nearly before you even completed your edict!"

"Nonsense," Dryya shouted. "If this is a jest, then I will see your name amended to _Clown_ Knight Ogrim! And that is no idle threat!"

"You doubt? Come, come. Look! I do not consider myself a wizened sage, but even still I wager my own title with confidence. This foe that our Little Knight has slain is indeed a Hopper. A _nymph_ Hopper. Creatures of its kind begin their itinerant lives as minute copies of what they will grow to be."

Dryya stomped closer and descended to one knee. She prodded the nymph Hopper with a digit and proceeded to rip one of its legs off and roll it in her hand.

"If you hold no confidence in me," Ogrim continued, "then be aware that this knowledge comes from Isma herself. Few are as well-versed on flora and fauna as she."

With a snarl, Dryya tossed aside the bug's leg and wiped her palm against the stone. "That is a Hopper, yes, but that was not the task that I set forth!" She rose and paced back to the edge of the cliff. Her voice descended to a burning whisper. "What does this mean? Did it misconstrue my intent? Willfully? But it lacks the capacity. No mind to think… Yet!"

"Fierce Knight?" Ogrim asked, still chortling. "Is this to be considered a victory for the Little Knight? In many ways, cunning is as vital a skill as raw strength, would you not agree?"

"Vessel! Come!" Dryya yelled.

I bolted to my feet and across the expanse before Ogrim had time to turn his head. Again, Dryya's will was upon me, and I stood taut like the string of a harp.

"Stay here," she said, pointing to the very lip of the precipice.

I complied.

"You seem impassioned," Ogrim said, suddenly mirthless. He stood up and dusted his legs with the back of a claw. "Was the Little Knight's performance on your test unsatisfactory?"

"Be silent, Ogrim," Dryya said. "And you might yet learn something." She looped her stunted Long-Nail through a thread-fine belt at her waist and crossed her arms tightly against her chest. "To be deemed worthy enough to undertake this trial, a Vessel must have proven itself to be powerful and hollow in equal measure. Among these two traits, power is easy enough for a Knight to understand, but rarely does the King explain what it is to be hollow." She glanced over her shoulder, as if to confirm that Ogrim was still there. "Isma has told you that these things do not think as you or I. That emotion and reasoning are beyond them."

"That is what she claims."

Dryya made a low, feral noise. "Before today, I would have called Isma's words the irrefutable truth, and not a mere claim. But this Vessel casts doubt upon that assumption."

"Never have I been called wise or keen-eyed, but I feel that the Little Knight's mind was fairly obvious. It—"

In a blur of motion, Dryya whipped her Nail from her belt and leveled it at Ogrim. "Not one more quip. Not one more word of frivolity. Or you will taste my blade."

"It was no jest," Ogrim said, with barely enough breath to utter.

"In my years I have subjected many Vessels to this trial, and the inevitable doom it entails. But not one among them behaved as this Vessel has. The King's dark tinkering has made these things into what they are: tools that obey absolutely and in perfect accordance to the wielder's desire. Yet this one _interpreted_ my words. It did not absorb them as their kind is meant to do. How it managed to parse my message and perceive it in such a way is not clear, but that act is not something that a hollow being is capable of."

"You bleed menace, Fierce Knight," Ogrim whispered. "You seek to deliver death. It is as salient as a strong wind. But only we three stand here. I do not comprehend. Do you bear this bloodlust over something so minor as spearing a nymph Hopper?" He raised his claws in a gesture that was equal parts pleading and combative.

Dryya turned her Nail away from Ogrim and positioned herself behind me. "When circumstance and my Lady's mandate required that I appraise this march of puppets, I was told not to tolerate weakness. But even more so, I was warned of the jeopardy that might be brought about by a Vessel not truly hollow. And it became clear to me that above the petty tasks of gatekeeper and proctor, I was to be an executioner."

Dryya hefted her Nail, leveling it for a lethal strike at my neck. "Look forward," she rasped to me. "Be still. Though pain means nothing to you, I will ensure there is none."

As I had been told, I did not move. The shackles that had become such a familiar thing held me firm. From the corner of my vision, I witnessed the descent of Dryya's jagged Nail.

The canyon stretched out before me, like a vast, open grave.


	8. Chapter 8

_**8**_

A curtain of sparks veiled my sight. A squeal of clashing blades stifled my hearing. For an instant all sense was stolen from me. And though I remained motionless, awaiting the death that Dryya had ordained.

It did not come.

The sparks faded. The squeal receded. And I yet lived.

The canyon was still before me, impenetrable beneath its fog-leaf shroud. And those bloated creatures still floated listlessly over its spires.

It was quiet. Even the pervasive wind had slacked in its moaning. Only a metallic grinding persisted. Directly behind my neck.

"You would dare raise your claws to me?!" Dryya asked, half a snarl and half a whisper.

"Please, Fierce Knight," Ogrim cried, "stay your Nail! Has the affliction's madness clouded your eyes?!"

Feet scraped against stone, weight shifted, and a Nail rasped down the length of a claw.

I could not turn, not even the slightest shift of my head. The burden of command held me still, as if I were entombed within a block of stone.

"If madness claims anyone, then it is you! It seems sentimentality has stripped away your reason. The Lady's decree is to see this thing destroyed. And yet you impede that!"

"But why?!" Ogrim gasped. "I beseech an answer! Why must the Little Knight perish?"

"Vessels are not meant to possess minds. It is contrary to their purpose. And this one has made its own mind quite apparent."

"Did all this arise due to that nymph Hopper? Was skewering it so terrible an offense?!"

"Amongst the King's constructs, consciousness brings with it a threat, in these Vessels more than any other. I will eliminate that threat. Now, lower your claws and stand aside! Or you will soon rue your actions."

Panting interspersed Ogrim's words. "But Hallownest is a land of enlightenment, where our King grants thought to even the basest of bugs. A mind is a noble thing—a goodly thing! You would slay the Little Knight for having one of its own?"

"Yes, curse you! And if your beloved King did not insist upon His idiotic secrecy, then this would have come to you as no shock! But, if you vow to cease this interference, then I will share the truth of things, regardless of that King's desires."

The friction of claw and Nail heightened. "That is a cruel offer. You would have me barter the Little Knight's life for a few dread secrets?"

"Fine, then!" Dryya said. "Wallow in ignorance if it suits you, so long as you step aside! I will not warn again!"

There was a cracking, and Ogrim gave a pained grunt. "I will not."

A groan of tormented metal. "You make a heinous mistake! Folly to eclipse even Ze'mer!"

"If this is indeed a mistake," Ogrim growled, "then I will bear its punishment in time. But you will not slay this little one. I cannot allow such unrighteousness."

"You overstep yourself, infant!" Dryya bellowed. "What notion do you have of righteousness!? The pitiful span of your years is too few to judge!"

"PERHAPS!" Ogrim bellowed back. He heaved, and there was a stumble of steps. "But I have been given a choice: to watch my chivalry die alongside this Little Knight, or to remain true to the duty that I have made for myself. To these infant eyes that choice is clear."

There was an icy span of seconds. And the heat of debate drained from Dryya's voice. "Very well. Then ready your claws. You have passed beyond clemency."

"To me, Little Knight," Ogrim whispered. "Remain close. I will shield you."

The impalpable tomb of Dryya's last command crumbled away, and movement was restored to me. Ogrim's order took hold, and I darted to his side.

Scuffs, gouges, and scattered chips of metal-like chitin marred the spot where the two Knights had locked blades. Dryya stood several paces away from it, her weapon held out before her, tip leveled at me.

Ogrim extended his arm to separate us. The claw upon it had lost its glass-smooth edge and was now covered in nicks and dotted with spiderweb fractures. It tremored as Ogrim raised his voice. "This battle need not be, Dryya. If it is truly the Lady's will—the King's will—that this Little Knight be…" He swallowed. "done away with, then I will hear it from them! Let us return to the City. All of us."

"I already speak for the Lady. Her verdict would be no different. And that King is as blind now as ever. Self-delusion would conceal any flaw that He might perceive in His _Pure_ Vessel." She shifted her stance to face Ogrim. "No. I will administer judgment here. To it. And to you."

Ogrim took a breath to ready a retort, but before another word escaped him, Dryya struck.

She moved as if the weight of the world meant nothing. Her slender legs closed the distance in a single bound, and with both claws she lifted her Long-Nail over her head.

But Ogrim reacted, far faster than he was like to do. Before Dryya's blade could bisect him, he crossed his claws to catch it. A strident concussion sounded, like the dying toll of a great bell.

Two new fractures sprouted along the blades of Ogrim's claws, and he collapsed to one knee. The rock beneath cratered at the force, and a stalactite from the nearby cave mouth dislodged.

But before the stalactite even shattered against the ground, Dryya was in motion. She faded back and then forward, feinting strikes at Ogrim's sides, legs, and head, yet not committing.

Ogrim parried at the phantom attacks but did not connect with Dryya's Nail. A growl billowed within him, and he lunged to his feet in a sudden shift toward aggression. Like a rising spear, he extended his claws toward Dryya's stomach, but again they found nothing.

The Fierce Knight seemed almost phantasmal as she dodged out of range of Ogrim's attack. She flicked her Nail with an air of impatience. "This is no sparring match, Ogrim. I am no tutor, with one claw behind my back and a shellwood Nail in the other. This is a duel. And you—perhaps above all others—know of my history on this subject."

"Oh yes," Ogrim said, with a groan-twisted laugh. "Yours is a chronicle of unbroken victory. Although, when deep enough in his cups, I have heard Hegemol claim to have bested you a time or two."

"Still more jokes," Dryya said.

She waded in with a fresh volley of strikes, and this time not one was a feint. They crashed against Ogrim's immobile defense, setting his shell to rattling.

Slashes rained at Ogrim's brow and thrusts probed at his heart, but he did not move, instead catching or parrying each attack with his crossed claws. A semicircle of cuts and furrows formed in the ground at his feet. But as the count of strikes rose into the dozens, Ogrim began to crumple. Faintly at first, but eventually to the point that he staggered with every hit, and barely managed to resume his stance before the next fell.

I kept my place at Ogrim's side. As he had ordered. The duel raged an arm's length away, and every swing of Dryya's Nail set my cloak to fluttering. Periodically, she attacked me, forcing Ogrim to alter his defense. He suffered several glancing blows against his carapace to ensure that I went unharmed.

And though I did not move, I began to burn, with the same searing feeling that had come with Dryya's command to hunt and kill. I was under no other directive than to stand, yet the burn persisted, with some task unheard, some duty ungiven.

 _The strong protect the weak._

My grip tightened upon my Nail.

But with one last clang, the assault ended—and the burning with it. Dryya fell back to her previous spot. "Why prolong this farce?" She asked, slight labor in her voice. "You crack to pieces. Only moments remain for you."

Ogrim wobbled on his feet. "I fight not that I might triumph before you, but that I might not fail before myself."

"You will die," Dryya observed. "Is there any greater failure?"

Another pained laugh from Ogrim. "We have never shared this many words, you and I. It did not occur to me how… different we could be."

"This bout grows distasteful. You would do well to lay down and feign death. Perhaps I might overlook you after the Vessel has been disposed of."

"You know that I cannot," Ogrim whispered. "I would sooner slay myself."

Dryya made a petite noise, something like surprise. "The wisdom of my years fails me too often," she said.

Ogrim risked tilting his head. "What?"

"Vessel!" Dryya shouted. She did not even look at me, but I felt her hooks coiling. "Destroy yourself!"

And the hooks sprang. They wrapped my body and burrowed into my limbs, again making of me a marionette. With a deft twist, the Short-Nail inverted in my grip, and both my arms lifted the sheening point to my chest. Liquid-shadow beaded as the tip pressed into my body. But I felt no pain, merely a chill as if from a lonely gust. My arms tensed, preparing to drive the blade deeper, to rend whatever vital spark I had and return me to nothing. But a single word stilled me.

"Stop!" Ogrim wheeled to face me. "You must not do such a thing!"

The Nail slackened.

"Destroy yourself, Vessel!" Dryya repeated. "I command it!"

There was a sick crunch, and a flurry of opaque bubbles gushed from my chest. I collapsed to my knees, but oblivion did not take me. I readied to strike again.

"I said STOP!" Ogrim screamed, this time with such violence that his voice tore. "You are never to slay yourself, Little Knight! Do you understand? NEVER!"

The hooks unwound. My arms fell limp at my sides.

Dryya rose to a booming echo that transcended even Ogrim. "You WILL obey, Vessel! Destroy yourself! Now!"

But I did not. Though I felt the order upon my shell like an electric effect, it held no authority. It was as if the frothing river of Dryya's will were diverted by some impassable barrier.

Ogrim knelt beside me and grasped the Nail's hilt between his mangled claws. He extracted it from my chest with a tug and tossed it to the ground. The shadow-smeared blade skidded across the stone, catching on a protruding pebble and skipping off the cliff's edge into the canyon below. Ogrim held his arms about me in a defensive circle yet seemed uncertain how to react to the thin flow of darkness that percolated from my chest and wafted through the air.

"Again, it proves its dysfunction," Dryya muttered. "The new order did not obliterate the last. Somehow, this Vessel _retained_ it…"

Ogrim whipped about and snarled. "Too far, Dryya. Too far! You skirt the precipice of dishonor. Has all sense of chivalry rotted within your heart?"

"Chivalry," she said, as if tasting it. "You will find that word grows insipid with time's passage. But no. Not quite. If that were so, then you would have died the moment that you turned your back."

It took a great effort for Ogrim to rise. He propped himself to his feet with the tips of his claws, and more chitin tumbled to the ground like Geo from a torn pouch. "Well, do you expect thanks for that mercy?"

"I expect you to yield!" Dryya snapped. "This contest is done. You have not the right nor the power to continue."

"I am not defeated," Ogrim slurred.

Dryya shook her head and raised her Nail. "Do you intend to make of me a butcher?"

"No, Fierce Knight. The opposite. I will save you from that end."

"Fool!" Dryya roared.

In three stomping steps, Dryya was upon Ogrim once again. She planted her feet and swung her Nail in an arc at his torso. The attack was far slower than any she had yet loosed, but it seemed infused with every scrap of her strength.

Ogrim attempted to dodge, but the movement was little more than a lurch. At the last instant, he raised his claws to shield himself, but they did nothing. The Nail's impact pitched him to the ground, with such force that his shell cracked.

"Stay down," Dryya said. She spun about and raised her Nail to me, readying to bury it to the hilt into my mask. She snatched a breath, and the blade descended.

But up shot Ogrim, as if pain meant nothing, as if fatigue were a thing foreign to him. He wrapped Dryya from behind with his broken claws, catching her bent arms and pressing them tight to her chest. The Nail jolted from Dryya's grip and dinned against a rock. Ogrim arched his back, lifting Dryya's tall form and stealing her purchase of the ground. "You will not!" he cried, with words wet and tortured. "So long as I live, you will not slay this one!"

Dryya struggled and twisted, but Ogrim's claws were locked like a pair of manacles.

"Vessel!" Dryya shrieked. "Hurl yourself into the canyon! Seek out the greatest beast within so that it might devour you!"

And the command flooded over me, circumventing whatever barrier might have been. I faltered up from my knees and took a half-step about, in the direction of the cliff.

"No!" Ogrim yelled, "Stop! You must—"

But Dryya flung her head back to slam Ogrim full in the face. She wrenched her body to the side and lashed out with an elbow at Ogrim's temple.

The grapple broke, and Dryya stumbled free of Ogrim's arms. "Do as I commanded!" Dryya said, before turning around and clenching her claw into a bludgeon.

Ogrim was already drawing a breath to interdict, but it was lost as Dryya punched him in the eye. He bellowed in pain and reeled back.

"Go!" Dryya thundered.

The word slammed against me like the butt of a lance. My feet lost the ground, and I found myself hurtling into the canyon.

Ogrim screamed something after me, but the growing distance obliterated his meaning.

Black bubbles streamed behind me like the tail of a comet, and pulsing shadow obscured much of my vision. Through the murk I saw a spire rushing up to intercept my descent. But, before I collided and was dashed apart, the material of my cloak transformed, becoming membranous and sheathed in light. I flapped with all my strength, sweeping my transient wings to one side and altering my trajectory. Wind roared as I grazed the spire's edge, and pain sheared across my shoulder. With a kick and another flap, I amended my course.

But my glide returned to a fall as my wings shriveled, and I pierced the canopy. Branch after branch buffeted me. Their sharp edges scratched my mask and tattered my re-forming cloak. I landed without elegance, tumbling into a cluster of ferns and coming to a stop.

But no sooner had I stilled than I rose to my feet. The brand of Dryya's dictum was seared into my shell, and I could not resist it.

I set off in search of a creature to devour me.

In contrast to the cliffs above, the canyon floor was glutted with life, both plant and fungal. Thick shrubbery and nests of vines occupied the spaces where light was found, while carpets of mushrooms took up the darker stretches. Overhead, sprouting from the craggy slopes of the spires, were the tall-stalked plants that made up the canopy. Between them flitted many winged bugs, in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some paused to regard me, venom dripping from their bright-orange abdomens.

Spores rose like fog banks as I trudged over fungi, and stray leaves clung to my cloak as I pushed through bushes. I passed even more bugs as I went, but they were far too small to consume me.

The insubstantial leash tugging at my neck eventually brought me to a clearing occupied by Maskflys. They flinched at my appearance and took flight in a spiraling arrangement before vanishing into a hole in the canopy.

At the center of the clearing was a cavity of stone, within which rested a crystal-pure pool of water. I skirted its edge, but a metallic flash caught my attention. I stopped, held fast by something. Beneath the perfect stillness of the water rested an object, unnatural in such a setting. It was a Nail, the very Nail that Ogrim had flung off the cliff minutes before. I quivered in place, strung between Dryya's imperative and another long forgotten.

 _Take the Nail, little one._

Though the leash of Dryya's will strained against me, I shuffled down the slope of the cavity and splashed into the chilling pool. It was not deep, and the Nail's hilt came easily to my grip. I kept it close to my side as I left the clearing. My wet steps smacked across the stone.

I was directed ever downward and toward the heart of the canyon. Light became less and less frequent, forcing plant life to give way to fungus and rot. Pale, root-like things began to appear in the soil. They sported bulbs at their tips which cast a ghostly glow upon the unnatural night. Creatures skittered and hissed beyond the reach of those bulbs, but their noises were meager and furtive. They were unfit to fulfill my task.

I continued onward, heedless of the long gulfs of darkness through which I walked.

But weakness crept upon me, like frost over the petals of a flower. Strands of ebony smoke wept from the wound in my chest. My legs shuddered with every step, and spinous vines rendered the path treacherous. As a matter of inevitability, I faltered and fell at a dip in the canyon floor. This dip extended into a slope, and the slope into a fissure.

I crashed through putrid underbrush and slime-coated mushrooms. The walls of the fissure protruded like broken teeth, and I ricocheted all the way down, like an echo through a winding passage. With a crunch of chitin, I came to a stop.

For a time, I could not rise. The world seemed to quake beneath me, and animation would not return to my limbs.

From the scope of my vision, it appeared that I rested in a cavity of soil and loose rock. The wan caress of those glowing bulbs illuminated my surroundings. Beneath me and within the walls, tiny, spike-covered bugs squirmed over one another with a pointless urgency.

Slowly, feeling crawled its way back into my body, and I pushed up to arms' length. A scrap of moon-white shell fell from the cheek of my mask. Yet that scrap did not belong to me. Though I was wounded, my mask was still unbroken.

I stood, and more scraps thumped upon the soil, falling from my chest and cloak. Something had broken my fall, and in the process broken itself. I looked down to survey it.

The tangled strips of a steel-gray cloak.

The shattered remnants of two curved horns.

The stump of a Nail, devoured by rust.

And the umbral stain of what had once been a body, so much like mine.

Out of these remains stared one unblinking eye socket, the only distinguishable remnant of a mask. The spike-covered bugs writhed and threshed through the pearly shell fragments, taking them up in their mandibles and grinding them to powder with sedulous attention.

A voice, unbidden, rose from the incomprehensible tendrils of the past.

 _That thing is… No consequence to you. It is mere refuse…_

And again, my purpose ensorcelled me. I strode over the corpse and did not look back.

The fissure was deep, far deeper than my enervated body could surmount. Not even a sliver of natural light reached down from above. Yet ahead, a passage peeked out of the cavity wall. It was little more than a crack lined with fungus, but it foretokened progress. With difficulty, I squeezed through and into the crushing embrace of the earth.

Every step forward was a labor. The scrape and toil of my movements rebounded back at me, for the walls were barely wider than my shell. Stagnation hung heavy, as if the ash coating the land above had seeped down and become the very air about me. My cloak caught on jagged corners. My horns bashed against low-hanging stalactites. At times it felt as if my body would rip in two as I forced through jaw-like openings in the rock. Yet I did not—I could not—stop.

Though half-blind and panting, I spied something in the distance. Beyond a bend in the earthen labyrinth stood a beacon, a gap in the wall through which spilled sickly light. I hastened forward, sheared my shell upon talons of stone, and finally tore free of the tunnel's clutches.

A sweeping crater appeared before me. It resembled the mouth of some enormous parasite: perfectly circular, and with triangular shelves of stone jutting along its edge like teeth. Farther above, the green of the canopy and the gray of the dull sky were visible.

On the far side of the crater was a cave mouth. Littered about it were the hulks of dead creatures. Their shells bore puncture wounds, and what remained of the flesh upon their bodies was desiccated and shrunken. Within the cave, a foul wind blew, expanding and receding in a slow cadence.

The leash of my command grew taut. I had found the object of my journey. The heat rose in me, and I approached the cave, every step faster than the last.

Though the only sound I made was the hiss of my cloak, the wind within the cave stilled. A sequence of tremors disturbed the earth, and a presence revealed itself. Two eyes, lividly-orange, emerged from the dark, and with them came the plated form of a gargantuan bug.

Six legs, vestigial wings, and a Nail-sharp proboscis greeted me. I beheld a Hopper, many dozen times larger than the one Dryya had slain. It fixed the molten liquid of its gaze on me and approached. The ground beneath it buckled and cracked like the surface of a frozen lake.

As the Hopper drew close, the finer details of its body became apparent. Old cuts, bite marks, and abrasions tarnished its armor. The wings upon its back were nothing but shredded flaps, and a hairline fracture ascended its proboscis, reaching all the way to the eye socket. The Hopper's front-right leg had been severed at an upper joint, causing it to list with every hop. Yet it still maneuvered around the heaps of its victims with a semblance of finesse. The bulk of its body cast a shadow that stretched ravenously toward me.

But fear was no birthright of mine, and I careened into a sprint, erasing the distance between us. Such was the demand placed upon me.

The Hopper did not bellow or screech. Aside from the crunch of stone, its only noise was strenuous breathing, like a windstorm in a long tunnel. As I entered its range, the Hopper slid to a halt and gathered its legs beneath it. With a snapping noise that resembled splintering shellwood, the Hopper leapt into the air. It angled its pointed limbs at me and dropped like a boulder.

I did not brandish my Nail. I did not tense and prepare to dodge. I did not draw from the well of Soul within me. I merely waited.

In anticipation of my task's end.

But as the terrible weight descended, a smear of color swept down from the crater's edge. I was struck, not by the piercing proboscis of the Hopper, but by something soft and warm. Fuzzy limbs wrapped me, and I was spirited into the sky. A deafening crash resounded beneath me as the Hopper landed and imprinted a second crater into the first.

As I soared on delicate wings not my own, the leash of purpose pulled at me. Of all the creatures in the canyon, that Hopper alone could fulfill my goal, yet I was traveling away from it.

Fatigue rendered me sluggish and impotent, but I pushed against the thing keeping me aloft. I needed, above all else, to return to the crater. So that I might be devoured.

"Settle down, valiant larva," whispered the soft, winged thing about me. "Be still. Should you fuss then I might drop you. And we cannot have that."

The leash snapped. And as a dozen commands before it, Dryya's edict was lost to me, with but the passage of a few antithetical words. I stilled, letting the pain and weariness loose from the cage in which I had bound it.

The winged thing chuckled. "There we are. Much better. You might care to rest. We are nearly free of the Matron's den."

A few flaps and an easy glide brought us above the crater's rim. All around stretched the private ecosystem of the canyon, dispersed with similar craters like marks upon a damaged shell.

The winged thing gripped me tightly and returned to the earth in a helical motion. We alighted on one of the huge, stone wedges that encircled the Hopper's crater. The winged thing flapped one last time to stabilize itself, and fine, ruby-hued powder detached from its wings to sparkle away on the breeze.

I was released from the cushioned embrace with a gentle nudge. But the new mandate of stillness that had been placed upon me paralyzed my limbs, and I collapsed into a heap.

The winged thing made an alarmed noise. "Oh dear, are you alright? Has exhaustion overtaken you? At the least, sit up if you can. I must ensure that you aren't hurt."

I lifted my body from the cold rock and crossed my legs. Despite everything, the Nail was still with me. I rested it on my lap and looked up.

The winged thing was a moth, with multi-faceted, obsidian eyes and pronounced antennae shaped like the fronds of a fern. Something like fur draped its entire body, in alternating hues of pinks and whites that clashed with the drabness of our surroundings.

The moth reached up to tug at the tips of its wings and pulled them inwardly in an overlapping pattern. In a few seconds, the wings came to resemble a stiff sort of cloak, and the moth sat down beside me. Stripes of fuchsia and cream mingled in a manner that could be called… beautiful.

"You recover quickly," the moth said. "That is a good sign." It looked me up and down, from the scrapes on my horns, to the Nail in my lap, to the dirt caking my feet. At the sight of my chest, the moth cringed. "That is a ghastly wound you bear. Is the pain dire?"

But I did not reply.

"Perhaps I am being impertinent," the moth said. "I will begin with introductions." It lowered its head in a grave gesture. "I am called Seer, of the moth tribe. What is your name?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's note:** To those experiencing a strangely familiar sensation, this chapter is a heavily edited re-post. I was not content with the quality of the previous version of this chapter and sought to remedy it. I don't... actually know if this iteration is 'better' than the previous, but at the very least I gave improving it a shot. Portions of chapter 8 were also altered to remain in line with chapter 9's changes. Ideally, we will proceed from here and there will be no future chapter overhauls, but... who can say?

I hope you enjoy.

* * *

 _ **9**_

Just as the shining powder of Seer's wings had drifted away into nothingness, so too did her question. She waited for some time in a posture of polite attention before clearing her throat and reiterating. "What is your name?"

But my response remained unchanged.

The white antennae atop Seer's head twitched. "You have a name, yes?" she asked.

Silence.

"You have a _voice._ Yes?" she added.

But I said nothing, and instead simply watched her: the glare of her color, and the flicker of her fur.

A black bubble percolated from my chest and Seer tracked its listless course.

"I have not seen an injury of that sort before. How did you come to suffer it?"

I had no answer.

Another twitch of Seer's antennae. "Do you require help? If so, then you must tell me."

 _Speak up. I cannot help you if you do not._

But another reticent moment passed us by.

Seer unclasped her wings and gave them a fitful flap. The bubble caught in the ensuing gust and disappeared. "Clearly, you are not the talkative sort. But, I suppose your wound must not distress you too much if you feel no need to speak of it."

She draped one of her four wings over her lap and began to brush at it with a furred arm. Stray blades of grass and particulates of dirt fell away, which only served to increase her resplendence.

Seer gave me a sidelong glance and her tone took on a sly lilt. "If you will not answer my questions, then I am forced to speculate. Should I err in my guesses, then it is your responsibility to correct me, wouldn't you agree?" She took a ceremonious breath. "From your shabby attire and that muddy Nail, I surmise you to be some vagabond Knight on an ill-advised quest. And not a very skilled Knight at that, considering you required rescuing." She paused, and the facets of her eyes gleamed like glass.

But I did not defend myself. I had no corrections to offer.

"And to think _I_ was that rescuer," she continued, a little louder, "A feeble moth! It would be quite mortifying if I were to return to the Kingdom and spread news of this assumption. If I am not amended, then I might stain a certain vagabond's honor."

Yet still, I did not speak.

"Why, if the Knights of the King's court learned of this event, then you would have no hope of ever joining their ranks!"

I maintained a stillness that rivaled the stone of the earth.

Seer huffed and pulled down another wing to preen. "You are imperturbable if nothing else. Perhaps that will be your title if you ever ascend to the rank of the Five Greats. 'Imperturbable…'" And she waited for me to fill the gap.

But I did not.

Seer completed her cleaning with a sigh and cloaked herself in her wings once more. "But truly now, do you have no words for yourself? I have been about this assignment for many weeks now, and I am loath to find my only company in all this time to be mute. Come now, speak. King knows that I've indulged in far too many one-sided conversations already. If you require some promise of secrecy about today's… incident, then I will gladly give it, so long as you share a chat or two."

Seer's desire snatched at me but found no purchase, like a clumsy claw grasping at a curved carapace. I remained as unresponsive as ever. For I could not—and never would—speak.

"Fine, then," Seer said. "Cling to your silence if that is what you wish. It suits you well enough." She turned away from me and gazed down into the crater to watch the Hopper's slow progress back into its den.

With no threat before it, the Hopper was now devoid of that predatory energy that had propelled it just minutes before. The tips of its legs etched sinuous marks into the ground as it dragged itself along.

Seer rose from her cross-legged position and padded over to the crater's edge, her wings trailing behind like an imperial cape. "I must admit that it was rather startling to see you challenge the Matron in the way that you did. Your lone charge was quite brave, larva, but also quite foolish. Did you hope to slay the most ancient Hopper in this land unassisted?"

With a lethargic sort of grace, Seer leaned out over the crater to better see. "If so, then I have some harsh words for whomever set you on this quest." She beckoned to me. "Stand up if you can. And come here. I will tell you of this creature that you were tasked with destroying."

I stood, and though my usual strength had long-since wilted, I tottered to Seer's side.

"Do you see the pain in the Matron's step?" Seer asked with a downward nod. "It is much like your own. But while you are hindered by only one wound, the Matron is hindered by dozens. Her scars are the product of many lifetimes-worth of struggle. And as a result of that, she will soon die, even without the cruel assistance you had intended to offer her. Be it minutes, days, or weeks, I cannot say, but the end encroaches upon this mighty being."

Though she made no move to hint at it, Seer's dark, featureless eyes seemed to fixate on me. "My purpose in being here is to witness the Matron's death. To chronicle her. And from her passage, to recover what would otherwise be eternally lost. You should know that I did indeed rescue you from the Matron, but I also rescue her from you. For the Matron's many years of toil, she has earned a peaceful end, don't you agree? I ask that you allow her to pass at her own measure, and not upon the end of a Nail."

The Hopper's flagging trudge ground to a halt before a deep cleft bisecting the crater floor. The Hopper considered the gap and shuffled from side to side, alternately tensing and relaxing its body, as if readying to leap yet thinking better of it. In the Hopper's earlier advance, that very obstacle had been no impediment. But now.

"Is your silence a sign of agreement?" Seer asked. "Do you pledge a Knightly vow not to quarrel with the Matron?"

I offered neither agreement nor denial.

And Seer chuckled. "So, it is settled."

The Hopper adjusted itself one final time before tightening like a spring and launching into the air. But its trajectory was poor and its strength insufficient. The Hopper struck the side of the cleft and tumbled in an earth-cracking discord. After a moment of stilling dust, the Hopper teetered upright and ascended the shallower slope of the cleft back to its original position. Slowly, painfully, the Hopper's scar-streaked legs folded beneath its stomach and the creature settled to the ground. The journey home was abandoned, and with a heaving breath—audible even from this distance—the Hopper rested its head upon a nearby rock and surrendered to sleep.

Seer let out a sigh and also sat. A biting wave of air made her shiver, and she wrapped her wings more tightly. "Join me, won't you?" She patted the ground beside her. "My talk of long-sought company was not facetious. It is lonely observing the passage of a life."

This new task was within my means, so I capitulated. I sat down, my Nail returning to my lap, and my arms falling limp within my cloak.

"Thank you, larva. You are kind to indulge the whims of this silly moth." Seer set her gaze at a point somewhere beyond the slumbering Hopper, and quiet enveloped us like a shell of ash.

High above the canopy loomed a gray rampart of clouds. The winds sheared and tore at it to reveal fleeting glimpses of the night sky beyond, but like water cut by a Nail, the clouds reformed in an endless recurrence. For one, perfect second, stars and spiraling comets would emerge from the roil to scintillate upon a disc of black, only to be subsumed in the next.

"I was taught not to dwell," Seer murmured, reclaiming my attention. Her gaze was still set upon the Hopper. "On death, I mean. All are taken in their due turn. It is the way of things. To spend one's time considering death is to waste it. But of late I have had time in abundance, more than enough for wasting. It seems that death has seeped its way into my musings, and it does not wish to leave." She released a breath. "So that you know, I do not fear it—death. My kind never does. Moths know of the sanctity in memory that transcends such a small thing as the end of a life. So long as memory remains, nothing ever truly dies. Yet…" Seer's wing-cloak shifted as she tightened herself into a ball. "I am afraid."

 _Do not fear. Your King and his Royal Knights are here to protect you._

Although no wind disturbed her fur, Seer shivered a second time. "The affliction." She let the words hang. "You must know of it. If you come from the Kingdom as I suspect, then you must have witnessed the affliction's ravages. Just as I have." She shrank into herself. "The affliction brings with it a different sort of death: a death of the mind. It is a far crueler end than one brought about by Nail or claw or time. There is no sanctity in it… No transcendence…"

She tore her eyes from the crater and rounded on me. "Please, I understand that you do not care for chatter, but you must have some news of the Kingdom. In the weeks that I have spent waiting for the Matron's passage, not one word has come to me. What has happened in my absence? Does the affliction worsen? Has it claimed the last of my tribe?!"

Seer's questions came and went like a river rushing around a stone. She held my gaze, but I had no news to give.

"If you refuse to speak," Seer said, "then do you at least carry a scroll? A shell? Anything?" She held out a claw to receive whatever I might offer.

But there was no such parcel, and I made no move to suggest otherwise.

The ivory fur about Seer's neck bristled. "If you _cannot_ speak, then can you at least write?" She snatched up a twig and pointed to a sandy patch on the ground. With a hasty stroke, she inscribed a rune, and then handed me the twig. "Write," she whispered. "Please."

 _Words are ever a toil, thus this medium shall instead enable our rapport._

I slid a long, horizontal line over the sand, until the twig snapped beneath the pressure.

Seer gasped in pain, as if she herself had been the twig. "You are impossible! Is this some nightmare sent to torment me?" She shot to her feet and began to pace. Her claws wrung one another beneath her trembling wings.

After several, irregular breaths, Seer composed herself and came to a stop. "I had hoped it would remain unnecessary, but I carry with me a tool that might allow us to converse, in spite of your missing voice. The customs of my tribe demand your consent before I may use it, but…" Her head hung wearily. "You would not offer it."

Seer tapped her claws together and stared in the direction of the Kingdom, as if she could peer through the miles of foliage and stone like a pane of glass. "But that cannot be helped. I must know!" She returned to her spot on the ground and began to rummage beneath her wings. "Allow me to explain, and then perhaps you will not grudge me for using this tool."

Her wings parted to reveal a silken satchel, bound shut by a knotted cord. She worked the knot as she spoke. "My tribe has served as caretaker of this tool since the earliest age. Some think it to be a gift given to us by the dream itself, while others believe our ancestors forged it with a craft long-since forgotten. I do not pretend to know its origins, but I do know that it is powerful—and that it is the most prized possession of all moth-kind. Now that my teacher has passed away and I have ascended to her place as Elder, the responsibility of wielding this tool falls to me." She unraveled the knot and sunk a claw into the satchel's confines. But as she glanced up at me, she froze.

Seer's antennae flattened. Her wings formed a curtain over the satchel. And her voice grew icy. "You doubt me. I see it in your look, even though you try to hide it. You think me no Elder at all! I am 'too young', correct? You would not be the first to voice that opinion, if you ever deigned to actually speak." My reflection danced across her glaring, spheroid eyes. "It may be true that the passage of time has yet to purple my wings or cloud my sight, but I am still an Elder! I have earned that title. And I would not be here, holding this most sacred instrument, if that were not true!"

I refuted nothing. A wind-tossed leaf landed atop my head.

Seer held the stare for a long while—and I returned it. But her intensity bled away with the passing seconds. She let out a molten sigh and looked away. Her gaze settled on the Hopper, and some remembrance seemed to take hold of her.

She scoffed. "That was not a reaction fit for an Elder. I am sorry. It is not my intent to be short with you. Allow me to continue."

With another scattering of ruby, Seer swept the curtain of her wings aside to reveal the tool. She cradled it in her claws as if the slightest pressure might shatter it.

The tool was a thin ring of some woven material, ebony-black and of a quality that blurred the line between silk and steel. A pattern wove through the gap in its center, resembling a blossoming flower or a shining star. Attached to the ring's base was a simple grip like the hilt of a Nail.

Carefully, Seer lifted the ring by its grip and held it out for my appraisal. "As is the tendency of ancient things, this tool has borne many names. But I have always known it as the 'Dream Nail'. For those trained in its use, the Dream Nail is a key into the realm of dreams, a net by which to gather Essence, and a looking glass into the inner-most thoughts of the mind."

As if stirred to life by Seer's words, the Dream Nail flickered with a pale light. The spectral image of a blade manifested above the disc, and for an instant the Dream Nail embodied its name. But Seer flinched away, dropping it to her lap with a thud. The blade winked out of existence and the glowing ring dulled back to black. She quickly picked it up again, even more delicately this time, and inspected it for any damage. After a moment, she puffed a relieved breath and returned the Dream Nail to the pedestal of her claw.

"My teacher taught me a great deal about the Dream Nail before the affli—" Seer coughed. "—Before she passed away. And though my schooling was not _technically_ completed, I have learned enough that you need not worry." Seer leaned forward emphatically. "In order to perceive your thoughts, I must 'cut' you with the Dream Nail. But do not worry. It will do you no harm—in either body or mind. The Dream Nail is not a malefic instrument. It cannot steal the Essence from your living shell."

She paused to consider something. "You are aware of Essence, are you not? It is common knowledge among my tribe, but that may not be the case within the Kingdom."

I gave no assent.

Seer nodded. "Very well. I will elaborate. To quote my teacher: 'Essence is the precious light fragments of which dreams are made.'"

I displayed no sign of comprehension, and Seer's shoulders bobbed with a half-chuckle.

"But that is not much of an explanation, is it? I always told her such." She shook the thought aside. "Well, do you know of Soul: the substance synonymous with life? It and Essence are not so different. Just as Soul is the earthly fundament that animates the body, Essence is the ethereal fundament that animates the mind. In the simplest sense, one might call Essence the root of consciousness. When bound within a living shell, Essence enables thought, memory, and dreams. And when that living shell dies, then its Essence disperses back into the world, just as its Soul does."

She stood and lifted the Dream Nail like a lit torch. "So, do you see? The Dream Nail holds the power to peer into the Essence within your shell, allowing me access to your hidden thoughts and memories."

And she extended a claw. "Is that enough to allay your fears? I dearly wish to know of the Kingdom's condition, and this is the only means left to me. Please, if you trust me then take my claw and rise. That will be all the consent that I need."

At her frail command, I reached out, and she hoisted me to my feet.

"Excellent!" Seer released me and took a step back. She assumed the clumsy approximation of a warrior's stance, and the Dream Nail was once again engulfed in light, as if a flock of Lumaflies had alighted upon it. A chiming cascade resounded as the Dream Nail's apparitional blade erupted into being. But this time Seer did not shy away. She dug in her feet and took a deep breath.

"Let us begin with something simple. Introductions are easy enough. I have already given my name, now all you need to do is contemplate your own. Hold your name in the forefront of your thoughts and remain still. This will not hurt, I promise you that much."

 _My name…_

But Seer's decree carried no weight. Just as her earlier order to speak had been ineffectual, so too was this. Like a climber's claw on a cliff of smooth marble.

 _My name…_

The Dream Nail swept down with exaggerated slowness, so much so that if it had been a true Nail it would have lacked the momentum to even cut my shell. The concentrated light that composed its blade passed through my mask, temporarily stealing my sight. There was a resonant thrumming deep within me, but no thought—no Essence—seeped to the surface.

As Seer retracted the Dream Nail, she looked down and turned the glowing disk from side to side. "Strange. It seems that I have not quite mastered this instrument. I could not fathom your thoughts." She gave the Dream Nail an experimental swing through the air. "Allow me to try again. We must both increase our focus."

Without pause, the Dream Nail descended a second time, fast enough to be considered a slash.

Again, a flare of light, a thrumming within my shell, and then nothing.

Nothing.

Seer's voice tightened. "I don't understand. The Dream Nail brushes against a mind it never fails to sing, no matter how small that mind might be. Yet here, with you. Nothing. It sees no Essence within you… No thoughts. How can this be?"

A cacophonous sound issued from beyond the wall of foliage that ringed the crater. It was the snapping of vines and the crunch of trampled underbrush. The sound grew louder—closer—by the second. Seer unfurled her wings with a snap, and the incandescence of the Dream Nail vanished back into the silken satchel.

Seer shot out a claw and snatched my arm. "Something comes," she hissed. "Make ready! I will—"

But a round, lustrous thing exploded out of the greenery. A shower of torn leaves obscured it briefly, but the distinctive shape and the flash of silver were unmistakable.

 _Ogrim._

The Great Knight skidded to a halt a few paces from the crater's edge. He battled against his own momentum and barely avoided toppling. Upon stabilizing, he readied his claws and scanned the clearing. The pain was audible in his heaving.

At the sight of Seer, Ogrim cocked his head, and his claws lowered. "A moth?" He asked. "What are—" but the words caught as he spied me.

"Little Knight?" Ogrim whispered. He shook his head as if to banish delusion and looked again. "Little Knight! Indeed, it—it is true! You live!"

In a fashion that more resembled a stagger than a run, Ogrim approached. "I must beseech forgiveness," he panted. "I could not dispute Dryya's command in time."

For Ogrim's first few steps, a stiff tenacity held him upright, but that drained away like water through a perforated basin. His stagger became a lurch, and his lurch a shuffle. He halted a few paces away and hunched over. No matter how hard he labored, his breath would not return to him.

Seer released her grip upon me. Her wings fell like reams of silk, and the white of her arms pressed tightly against the pink of her stomach. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. "Great… Knight? Great Knight Ogrim? Why are you here? Why are you… injured?"

Myriad wounds decorated Ogrim's body, and not merely those that had been inflicted by Dryya. The dignity of his shell was sullied by acid burns, dents, and bite marks. His claws were still a ruin, most of their blade-sharp chitin having already been stripped away by Dryya's Nail.

Though Ogrim nearly tripled Seer's size, looking up to meet her gaze proved a heroic task. "Indeed," Ogrim said between gasps. "I am sorry, but—" he groaned. "—but I have no time for the questions in your eyes. Instead you must answer mine. Can you fly with those pretty wings?"

Seer looked to her shoulders, as if surprised to find her wings draping them. "Yes, I can, Great Knight. But why?"

Like a wasting plant, Ogrim sank to his knees. The act of lifting his head became too much, and he let it droop. "Dryya comes. Take the Little Knight. Fly far from here, as far as your strength will carry you. Find the King. Stop for no one." His limbs spasmed and he crumpled to the ground.

"Great Knight!" Seer exclaimed. "Great Knight!" She knelt beside him and her claws hovered over his body, not quite touching. "What has happened? Why must I fly? What has the Fierce Knight to do with this?!"

"Go," Ogrim whispered, before the last of his energy faded and he lost consciousness.

Seer shouted several more futile questions before her voice grew hoarse. She overcame whatever imaginary barrier separated her from Ogrim, and she pressed her claws against his chest, trying to rouse him with a shove.

But he did not stir.

Seer wavered to her feet and looked from me to Ogrim and back again in quick succession. Her breathing came as a strangled whine, high and fast. "You know one another? He spoke to you as if—as if—" She trailed off and looked to the foliage encircling the crater. Ogrim's advance had carved a makeshift tunnel through the greenery, the entrance of which gaped with shadow like an open mouth. "He was fleeing… From some beast?" She took a step back and her whole body quaked. "Are we in danger? A danger too grievous for even a Great Knight to overcome?"

But just like the questions she had offered Ogrim, these too went unanswered.

"Speak, larva!" Seer cried. "For King's sake, speak! I do not understand!"

She waited one entire second for her plea's inevitable failure before wheeling back toward the prone Knight. The Dream Nail seemed almost to materialize in her grip, and she raised it with both hands over her head. Its blade chimed into existence, and she readied to bring it down.

"Great Knight! Before I fly and leave you to this fate, I must know the truth! Forgive this insolence! Please!"

The Dream Nail descended, trailing ghostly hoops of light. Yet as it neared, a voice boomed out of the foliage.

"HALT!"

Seer jerked to a stop, as if a rival Nail had repelled her.

With a glint of metal, Fierce Knight Dryya emerged out of the dark.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** For those that recall the previous version of this chapter, I wanted to clarify the Seer/Oracle matter. Originally I included Oracle as an ancestor stand-in for Seer because it didn't make chronological sense in my mind for Seer to be present at this point in the Hollow Knight timeline. In-game, Seer refers to the moths that lived during the pinnacle of the Pale King's rule as her 'ancestors', and thus it suggests that she is only a descendant. However, that is in itself an assumption because there is no concrete timeline to reference. I decided after an unreasonably agonizing period of time to swap Oracle for Seer in order to avoid OC backlash as well as to minimize minor-character bloat.

But anyway, thanks for reading. Throw me a comment if you'd be so kind. I very much appreciate feedback (critical feedback even more).

Take care.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note : Contrary to popular suspicion, I am not in fact dead, merely inexcusably tardy. Apologies. I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

 _ **10**_

At first all was quiet. Not a creature moved. Not Ogrim in the pit of his unconsciousness. Not Seer, her Dream Nail poised to strike. And not I.

Dryya stood twenty paces away, absorbing the scene before her. The Long-Nail in her grip was caked with gore and chitin, its periodic dripping the only sign that time had not screeched to a halt.

"The Fierce Knight," Seer whispered.

"That is a strange weapon you bear, moth," Dryya said. "I did not know your kind to be capable of martial skill." She took a step closer and flicked blood from her Long-Nail. "You menace a Great Knight with that very weapon. I did not know your kind to be capable of dealing death either."

The shake of Seer's head set her antennae to flailing. "You are mistaken! This is no weapon! I menace no one!"

"Is that so? Dryya rumbled. "I see the piercing tip of a Nail trained upon a bug far too wounded to defend himself. By my reckoning that is no amiable pose. If you are as wise as your race is famed to be, then you will step away from the Loyal Knight. Slowly."

Seer hesitated but did as Dryya demanded and lowered the Dream Nail to her side. It vibrated with a nervous energy, refusing to revert to that cold, black disc. "This tool can do no harm," Seer asserted, "It does not pierce or rend. It merely peers into the minds of those it touches. Nothing more."

With Seer no longer in striking distance of Ogrim, Dryya's stance slackened—but only slightly. Dryya studied the Dream Nail. "You sought to steal this Knight's secrets. You are a thief, then? It is a far cry from murderer, but that distinction does you little help."

Again, Seer's antennae lashed from side to side. "No! You misunderstand! I merely sought to learn the truth of Loyal Ogrim's words. He told of an impending danger and warned me to flee, but I could not simply abandon him to an unknown fate!"

"Dangers abound in this place," Dryya said with a vague gesture. "If you know anything of Kingdom's Edge, then that should be obvious." Her predatory gaze shifted to me. "You have stumbled into matters that do not concern you, moth. If what you say is truth, then it was likely Ogrim's intent for you to return home. You would do well to heed that advice. Quickly."

While still facing Dryya, Seer sidled over to me. Her trembling claw closed around my arm. "If that is your counsel, Fierce Knight, then it is not my place to object. My—My friend and I will depart now." Her wings loosed a dusting of ruby powder as they tensed.

"Wait!" Dryya barked. She crouched low as if readying to pounce, but when Seer made no further move, she stilled. "Ogrim and I have business with that… _bug_. It is the purpose for our journey here. You will depart alone."

Seer's grip on my arm was like a vise. "It was Ogrim's request that I bring this bug with me back to the Kingdom. How am I to know which Knight to obey?"

Dryya crept closer, still in a half-crouch. "I am the elder Knight. Prudence warns that you assent to me over a novice. Travel on your way, moth. This is no affair of yours."

The fine prongs of Seer's claw bit into the shadow of my arm. I did not flinch, despite the liquid-black beads that welled up around the punctures. Seer's voice was bereft of all cordial illusion. "The Loyal Knight spoke your name before he succumbed to his wounds. He said it with such desperation. Such consuming fear."

"Mind yourself," Dryya said, shortening the gap between them another inch. "A commoner is not meant to overstep."

"Forgive me," Seer whispered. "But commoner though I may be, I am no newcomer to these wilds. I know a beast slavering for the kill when I see one."

"Release that creature," Dryya ordered. "Now."

Seer paused. Swallowed. Took a breath. "No."

And Dryya struck.

The Fierce Knight was a silver blur before Seer was even allowed the time to flinch. Though Seer's cream-streaked wings rippled with the intent of flight, they were no more useful in that instant than slabs of marble. The Long-Nail carved a sweeping arc toward Seer's body, but it moved far slower than Dryya's norm. The flat of the blade fought through the air as Dryya brought it down to slap Seer aside.

With a crunch, the Nail landed on Seer's shoulder. The force was great, but she did not relinquish her hold on my arm. Together we were sent tumbling across the stone. We came to rest in a whorl of colors torn from Seer's fur.

"Up, little larva, up," Seer coughed. She wobbled up to her knees. "We must away!"

I did as I was bidden, even as the world continued to spin.

Dryya approached, her Nail held to one side so that its tip would not scrape the ground. There was no haste in her step.

Seer curled an arm up to cradle her shoulder. She spoke to me, low and fervent, as though confiding a secret. "I am sorry. I have not the strength to protect you. Flight is a moth's only ploy. Hold tightly to me and I will—" but a hiss of stifled agony cut her short. She strained to look over her shoulder, and at the wings that hung there, now bent at unnatural angles. She took a hitching breath. "…N-No."

 _Strength_.

The word echoed within me.

 _I have not the strength to protect you._

Seer stood on unsteady legs. She placed a claw on my shoulder and guided me behind the screen of her broken wings. The liquid glimmer of her eyes transfixed me. "Listen. The sky is lost to me. Do as Ogrim enjoined. Flee back to the Kingdom as swiftly as your legs can carry you. I will distract the Fierce Knight."

Seer's desire swelled in my chest, but this time it did not take purchase of me. Something ponderous and unformed rose up to contest Seer's will. This new force was so unlike what I had experienced before. It lacked the hard edges and incontrovertible purpose of a command, yet it bore a power that surmounted all else.

 _Are you frightened, little one? Hurt? Do not fear. Your King and his Royal Knights are here to protect you._

With effort, Seer straightened. Her voice carried in a rasp. "Fierce Knight! Please, stop this! Speak to me! Surely, there is—"

"Silence!" Dryya yelled. "Do not mistake this for a negotiation. Step away from the creature or suffer my Nail. There will be no other outcome."

The force within me magnified, slamming about within my shell and bringing with it a terrible heat.

 _Little one—Little_ _Knight…_ _you proved your worth and forced me to swallow my own presumptions… You are ever a surprising one._

A tremor ran through Seer's frame, so intensely that she gasped from the pain of it. "I cannot do that. I have saved this larva's life once already and I detest seeing my efforts wasted." She tried to chuckle, but it was toneless and hollow. Her uninjured arm shot out to shove me away, toward the wall of greenery and the Kingdom beyond. "Go," she breathed.

But I did not move.

"Such audacity!" Dryya snarled. "Have you no sense? It is the fate of the weak to flee before the strong. Your kind should know this fact more keenly than any other."

The heat within became a fire, and that fire a molten flood.

… _is the King's civilization not a favorable thing? A place where the strong protect the weak instead of preying upon them?…_

Seer pointed at Dryya with the Dream Nail. The blade rippled and sparked. "Have you not seen the ferocious potential of the weak when they are forced to defend that which is precious?"

"Precious?" Dryya laughed. "You understand nothing of that husk you shelter! But if you seek to make yourself a sacrifice—" She twisted the Long-Nail in her grip, bringing the cutting edge to bear. "—then who am I to deny you?"

It felt as though I would be consumed by the screaming heat, that my shell would burst and loose bubbling Void onto the stones.

 _Do you intend to make of me a butcher?_

 _No… The opposite. I will save you from that end._

Dryya's pounding steps closed the gap. The Long-Nail rose and fell, in an attack that seemed to span ages. The metal of the blade did not flash in the light, so stained was it by the blood of beasts and Loyal Knights.

Seer did not recoil or shrink. She did not even swing the Dream Nail. Impotent defiance braced her back as she waited for the end.

The heat vanished. The roil stilled. And that unformed force crystallized.

 _The strong protect the weak._

My Nail surged up to catch the killing blow. The fleeting, angry light of a hundred sparks splashed across Dryya's mask. Our blades locked, and for an instant there was only the stunned quiet of rattling metal.

Dryya let out a low growl. She leaned into the blade, forcing me back a step. "With every passing minute you fortify the truth of your deficiency. I see the will flickering in the depths of those eyes. It is something that I cannot allow to exist."

 _Should you prove… deficient, then this same end shall be yours._

 _But… you shall not prove… deficient. Do not fear…_

I summoned my strength and pushed. The two Nails shrieked in the struggle, but this time Dryya was the one to give ground. She ended the blade-lock with a deft flick and darted away.

"Of all the outcomes I anticipated, this was not among them," Dryya said as she settled into another stance. "But in a way, I am fortunate. No matter the necessity of it, execution is a distasteful thing. By raising your Nail, you have named yourself a warrior. I need feel no regret for ending you in battle."

Seer reached out with her crumpled arm and clutched at my cloak. "You must not do this," she hissed. "Flee. Survive. It is my wish, just as it is Ogrim's!"

But I did not obey. Seer held no sway over me.

Dryya let out a dismissive noise. She circled around to my flank. "The Vessel will not heed you. It has made its first true choice—whatever that might entail. Perhaps it hungers after the Soul in my shell. Perhaps it has incorporated something of Ogrim's foolishness. No matter the reason, it must be destroyed."

"You are a monster!" Seer spat.

"Presume as you like," Dryya laughed. "I do you a service that you will never comprehend. It would avail you to vanish while I am otherwise occupied, and in the interim you may slip my mind. Know that it is far easier to convalesce a broken wing than a stab wound."

And with that, the Fierce Knight vaulted into combat.

Unlike her first two, Dryya's third strike fell as a thunderbolt. I lifted my Nail flat over my head, and the jolt of the impact nearly ripped it from my claws. She followed with a wide, slow sweep from left to right, as though trying to fell an army and not a single foe. This time I did not block, and instead leapt back, crashing into Seer and bringing her to the ground. Dryya's Nail whistled over us, and the wind of it rippled through Seer's fur.

I clambered up off the stone, Nail ready, but Dryya did not immediately attack.

"It appears to be the latter," Dryya whispered. She loosed a long sigh and waded forward.

Her next wave of attacks was oblique and exploratory, similar to the pattern that she had employed against Ogrim. The blows came from every angle at every speed, probing my defenses without exposing her to counterattack. She exploited her height and the length of her Nail to approach in ways that I could not easily block. I remained as close to Seer as I was able, but Dryya worked with every swing to separate us.

Nails clanged and the slow burn of exertion burrowed into my limbs. The blows that I could not evade inevitably collected on my body. Nicks marred my horns, and long slashes reduced my cloak to tatters.

Though none of my counter-strikes found Dryya's shell, the battle took a toll on her in a different way. Dryya's breathing lengthened, becoming unsteady and loud. The precision of her movements declined ever so minutely.

"It is a great power to be an unliving thing," Dryya panted. She took a few steps back and swallowed. "Only on the very brink of obliteration do you seem to tire. It has been but a few hours, and that wound on your chest has already sealed. Attrition will be no ally of mine this day."

Dryya dropped into a sudden crouch, one knee an inch from the ground, and then lunged, Long-Nail leveled at my eye socket. I flinched to one side, but not before the blade caught the edge of my mask and rent it open. Dryya skidded to a stop several paces behind me, the tip of her Nail coated in viscous darkness. Something cold streaked down my neck and shoulder, accompanied by a high, needling pain. I looked at the darkness dripping from the shredded flaps of my cloak.

"Black blood?" Seer murmured.

Dryya returned to a deep crouch. "Indeed, moth. Had I the time or inclination, I would enlighten you to that curiosity. However, it would better serve you to withdraw than pose needless questions."

Dryya lunged again, the Nail pointed at my throat. I parried, running my own Nail down the length of the blade. A ringing, almost melodious note carried through the air, echoing into the greenery and over the crater's edge.

As if in reply, there was a low groan. Not from Seer or Dryya or I, but from Ogrim.

Dryya gave it no mind and continued her assault, bolting past me again and again, every time attempting to skewer me with her Long-Nail. I evaded as best I could, but the act was all-absorbing. No opportunity to counter presented itself. She was simply too fast. Even in the scant seconds that she spent reorienting after a lunge, she was too far for me to reach.

Contrary to Dryya's advice, Seer rose and stumbled over to Ogrim's side. The Dream Nail hung from her slack arm, its blade phasing partially into the stone. She collapsed as gracelessly as she had risen and prodded at Ogrim with her wounded arm. "Loyal Knight," she whispered. "Please wake."

But he hardly stirred.

The blur of the Fierce Knight shot past me for the dozenth time. In my distraction I was too slow to raise my Nail. There was a sick, slicing sound, and I lurched from the weight of a blow that I did not feel. Dryya came to a halt some ways behind me, hunched and breathing hard. Her back was to me—a state of vulnerability that she had not yet displayed. I readied a lunging strike of my own, but something was wrong.

I did not have my Nail.

Or my arm.

Dryya planted her Long-Nail into the stone and leaned on it. She gave me a look over her shoulder before lifting my Nail high in the air. Still grasping the hilt was my severed arm, midnight liquid trickling from the cut. Dryya pried my arm loose and tossed it to the ground. Already, my arm was losing shape, melting like a sliver of ice in the sun. Dryya returned my Short-Nail— _her_ Short-Nail—to the loop of her silken belt. "Isma was not mistaken when she proclaimed you mightiest among the Vessels. Not even a Great Knight would have endured this long." She took a moment to recover her breath. Spasms of fatigue racked her body. "But we have come to the end."

Seer's prodding grew frantic. She shook Ogrim's limp body from side to side, heedless of both their injuries. "You must wake, Loyal Knight! You must stand! She will kill the larva if you do nothing! You are this Kingdom's guardian, yes? Then fulfill that oath! Rise!"

Ogrim's only response was incoherent muttering.

"Cease, moth," Dryya said. "You waste your efforts. Let Ogrim rest. He would not wish to witness what I must do." She turned, laboriously, and took a step toward me.

I watched my arm deliquesce until it was nothing but an opaque puddle. Yet still I felt no pain from its loss, merely an absence—a hollowness. It was not unlike the sensation I had felt during my duel with Isma, when I unleashed that torrent of Soul upon her.

 _My heart tells me that I should end you. Here… Before your Void devours us all._

But now I possessed no Soul. I had failed to so much as scratch Dryya's shell. And even my Nail was lost to me. I was utterly defenseless.

… _what is Void but a weapon? As quick to cut friend as foe…_

Dryya dragged the Long-Nail behind her, as if its weight had magnified many times over. Once within range, she heaved the blade up and readied a decapitating blow.

"Stop!" Seer screeched. She was standing now, the sparkling beacon of the Dream Nail high over her head. "Stay your strike Fierce Knight, or I will be given no other choice but to act!"

"And what do you hope to accomplish?" Dryya tilted her head, just enough for a sidelong glance. "Will you lay me low with that gaudy lantern? By your own words it is but a tool. Only a weapon can hope to stop me."

"Even a tool can be dangerous when wielded by the desperate. If you force my claw, then what I unleash may prove _irrevocable._ "

"Do not. Threaten me," Dryya breathed. "I have showered you with warnings, but this is the last. If you interfere then you will die."

Dryya swung the Long-Nail at my neck.

But something woke within me, not the sweet warmth of Soul, but the antithesis; a fitful, gnashing thing, born of desolation and the need to consume.

The ragged stump of my shoulder twitched, seized, and bubbled. The gnashing thing within sought an escape from the prison of my form, and I could not deny it. I lifted my stump toward Dryya, and with a wet rending noise, a flood of umbral tendrils spilled from the wound.

The Fierce Knight had no time to counter, no time to escape. She managed half a gasp before being engulfed.

The tendrils scourged her body, cracking the silvered plating and the shell beneath. They encircled her right arm, wringing viciously. There was a tortured shriek of metal as Dryya's arm broke in three places. But even then, she did not relinquish the Long-Nail.

Euphoria took me. The tendrils siphoned Dryya's Soul through her fractured limb and filled my emptiness more completely than anything I had yet experienced.

With an impossible strength, the tendrils lifted Dryya off the ground. She struggled in terrible silence, clawing at them even as one closed around her throat.

"Larva how a-are you—S-Stop. Stop this!"

Someone far away was calling to me, but the song of Dryya's Soul drowned it out. I reached up with my remaining arm and slipped the Short-Nail from Dryya's belt. The ravening urge was undeniable. I _required_ every scrap of Soul that Dryya could offer. The more wounds she had, the faster I would absorb. I prepared to slice her from neck to stomach.

"Little Knight?"

Another voice. Someone else, lost in the blissful deluge. At first, hunger pushed it aside, but there was an insistence to it. The reverberations of that voice plucked at me. I turned my head. Beyond the screen of writhing black tendrils, propping himself up on weakened arms, was Ogrim.

"Little Knight… Is that you?" His words were thick and slurred. He shook his head. "What are you doing?"

 _Little one, do you know nothing of sparring?! When you approach a fellow Knight in the yard… you exercise restraint…_ _Sparring is the act of bettering one another through gallant combat_ _… not some squabble of rabid Mawleks…_

I looked back to Dryya. Her life was slowly ebbing away. She thrashed uselessly in the air, her legs kicking at nothing, scrabbling for a hold that they would not find.

My Nail clanged against the stone. The song of Dryya's Soul was cut short as the tendrils unwound from her limbs. The hunger screamed defiance, but I retracted the tendrils into the ruin of my arm. Unsteadily, I stepped back, exercising restraint…

Dryya collapsed to her knees, coughing and wheezing. Despite the river of Soul that I had drained, she still clung to consciousness. The plating on her right arm was like a collage of shattered glass. The Long-Nail rested loosely in her grip. "Ve-Vessel?" She fought through a spike of pain. "Why?"

But I had no answer.

A guttural noise fought its way up her throat. "You husk. You flawed shell! You damnable VOID!" She staggered to her feet and swapped the Long-Nail to her unbroken arm. "Accept your death! You are not meant to exist!" With the last vestiges of her strength, Dryya pounced.

"Dryya, wait!"

"Stop! I said STOP!"

The Long-Nail pierced my mask. With it came an explosion of incandescence, and the world was swept away.

* * *

 **Author's Note : Planning this chapter took a lot longer than actually writing it. But even then, it should not have required as much time as it did. I hope it was a pleasant read. More is on the horizon and should be arriving at a more reasonable pace... Feel free to provide feedback as you see fit. Tell me if the chapter had any hiccups or rough patches. Thanks for reading :)**

 **Special thanks go to AlphaAquilae and Meneil for beta reading.**


	11. Chapter 11

_**11**_

Awareness returned to me as a languid current of sensations: a warmth upon my shell, hard stone at my back, a ringing chorus.

I idled in this state, letting the wash of feelings erode time and meaning. There was no foreign will to bind me here, no threads to puppet my limbs, no reason to push on.

Yet, something faint beseeched my attention. It was no command but gave me strength all the same.

 _Rise, Vessel, so that I might see you._

I awoke to an amber sky festooned with clouds. Woven hoops of light drifted in and out of my vision, peeking through the churning banks as though as though playing at some game. There was a chiming music that filled the air, originating from nowhere and everywhere at once.

I pushed off the ground, but with only one arm, the act was a challenge. I wobbled upright and labored for balance. From this new vantage, I spied islands of stone that dotted the sky, extending off into the blurred horizon. They were topped with cobbled footpaths, iron fences, and clusters of copper grass. Between them were constellations of small platforms, spaced just closely enough to be traversed.

 _Go_.

Where I was bound, I did not know, but my legs faltered into motion.

Due to fatigue or injury, my wings would not manifest. I was forced to leap from platform to platform with all the dignity of a hurled brick. More than once, I slipped and plummeted into the yawning immensity of sky, but every time another platform assembled itself beneath me and broke my fall.

Eventually, I ascended—scuffed and panting—onto a broad tract of cobbles that resembled one of The City's causeways. It extended only a short distance, but as I approached its end, more cobbles rose up to extend it, continuing with every step I took. Behind me, the path I had already tread tumbled away, so that the causeway's length never changed. It was like an astral grub inching across the sky.

From time to time, other objects flew out of the ghostly depths to flank my passage. There were glittering lampposts, crumbling statues, and archways decorated with hanging bells.

But the journey went on interminably. My feet caught on every bump and crack. Barbs of black pulsed in the fringes of my vision. Cold liquid dripped from the stump of my arm. Inevitably, I fell, mask-first to the ground. As I trembled back to my feet, there was a grinding sound of shifting cobbles, and I looked up to behold a bench that had not been there an instant before.

It was wrought iron and backed with leaf-shaped filigree, with arm rests that curved inwardly like coiling roots. From its size, the bench seemed as though it had been made just for me.

My body ached. I glanced about, but there was nothing else in sight, just an endless, sunset realm.

 _Your stalwart conduct is admirable, little one, but do not push yourself to such a breaking point. By the King's own words, you are a treasure of Hallownest. Always rest when you feel a need for it._

I settled onto the bench, letting the pressure of the journey ease off my back. Slowly, my panting subsided, and with it the pain. I remained perfectly still as my wounds knitted and the cracks evaporated from my shell.

My head drooped.

It was… nice.

…

I jerked, startling awake.

The world about me seemed much the same, still suffused in golden light, still ringing with half-formed song. But it was no longer empty. In the distance a round, limping figure approached.

 _Ogrim._

He did not see me. His horned head was bowed, focus set on the self-assembling causeway on which he walked. His progress was slow, and more than once he staggered beneath the load of his own exhaustion, but he did not fall. The causeway he traveled ran perpendicular to mine, eventually merging at the very bench on which I sat. With the appearance of this obstacle, Ogrim stopped, and he looked up.

He seemed not to register me at first, as though I were just another object in a meaningless multitude. But something dawned on him, and he fought for words, coughing low in his throat. "Even in dreams we find one another. It is good to lay eyes upon you, Little Knight."

Ogrim took a few sleepwalker's steps and sank down beside me. The bench whined in protest but did not break. Ogrim's bulk took much of the seat, but I was slight, and there was enough space for both of us. He let out a long, pained sigh and stared off into a pinwheeling mass of clouds.

"Never in a dream have I been quite this sore," Ogrim observed. "Nor quite this weary. It feels as though I have slumbered a lifetime and yet found no rest."

Ogrim's broken claws lay on his lap. He absently tilted them to and fro, reflecting gilded light onto his scarred carapace. "Of late, it has become difficult to distinguish reality from illusion. This dream… it is so vivid. When did it even begin?"

I had no answer for him. I could only listen.

Ogrim seemed to take assurance from my attentiveness, for he continued. "I recall a… debate between the Fierce Knight and myself." He shook his head. "No, 'debate' is too gentle a word. It was a battle. A mortal duel. And you were there, Little Knight, standing beside me even as it raged. Now that I consider it, _you_ were the subject of that conflict. By whatever dream-mad reasoning, Dryya had deemed you unfit, a danger to the kingdom, and that you were to be…" his voice shrank, "destroyed."

Ogrim loosed a broad, dismissive laugh. "Preposterous, yes? Dreams are puzzling things indeed. In them, the most bizarre events can seem perfectly sane. Why, in that very dream, an errant moth rescued you from peril, and then you went on to defeat Dryya in single combat. Ha! What a sight that would be!" He pressed a claw to the side of his head. "As I think of it, that was a troubling turn in the dream. You had been sorely wounded, disarmed in the literal sense, and from that wound poured a gruesome mass of living darkness that choked the life from—"

But he stopped. And looked at the stump of my arm. Even now it bled droplets of black onto the bench's metal slats.

He did not speak for a time. He did not move his gaze.

"In honesty," he began, speaking softly as though to himself, "'troubling' is also too gentle a word. _'Terrifying_ ' holds closer to the truth. To witness such hideous might, to glimpse what lurks beneath your shell…"

He paused.

"It was no dream. Was it? _This_ is no dream."

Again, I had no answer.

"But I do not understand…" Ogrim murmured. "Her life was in your grasp. She sought to destroy you and would have succeeded had that power of yours not manifested. Tell me, Little Knight, if you are so _damnable_ as Dryya believes, then why did you spare her?"

There was a pain in my chest, not the keening sharpness of a nail blow, not the burn of exertion, not the roil of Void. It was a dull pang that longed for a release which would never be.

I did not explain to him. I could not.

Ogrim returned to his cloud watching, and the ubiquitous music of the place played a sort of interlude.

Eventually, Ogrim leaned forward and braced his arms on his knees. "There was a time not so long ago, that all I did was in confidence—in faith that the path I walked was righteous. But now it is as if that path takes me down the tangled slopes of a great canyon, and with every step the light recedes. There is an abyss somewhere before me. It is a place from which no Great Knight can escape. But I do not know how to avoid it. I no longer know the way."

Ogrim stood, and his tired body became rigid. "Dryya believes you a force of evil. The King believes you a tool. Even Kindly Isma thinks of you as an unliving facsimile. But I do not know what I believe. These forces vie within me so violently that I may tear apart. My fear calls you a threat. My code calls you an ally. My heart calls you a—." Ogrim paused, and the rigidity drained from his body.

He let out a single chuckle. "No. That is enough of that. Forgive my qualms, I should not have voiced them." He held out a helping claw. "Come along. Friend. The path before us has far from ended. There is yet time."

And I reached out to accept his claw. Without hesitation.

The journey resumed, and with it the ceaseless cycling of cobbles beneath our feet. But our destination was still unknown. No grand spire loomed over the horizon, and the only means of discerning forward progress was to track the passage of the clouds.

The brief rest at the bench had done much to alleviate my hurts, but that was not so for Ogrim. Though he made no complaints, tiny, pained noises escaped him like the sputters of a dying torch.

"When I was young," he grunted, "hardly more than a hatchling, my father regaled me with tales of the distant kingdom of Hallownest, of its resplendent King and his court, of its noble Knights and their grand adventures. I often wonder if my father's intent was to plant the dream of Knighthood within me. Maybe so, for he seemed unsurprised when I abandoned the nest and set off for that fabled kingdom."

Ogrim lurched, catching himself on my shoulder. He was heavy but, my strength held. With a murmur of thanks, he resumed walking, relying on me as a crutch.

I had no objections.

"I entertained such wild hopes," Ogrim said. "To brave the endless wastes, to discover the King's court, and to prove myself a worthy Knight. Fool's fortune saw me safely to the King's throne, but had I truly known what was required of me, would I have continued?"

Ogrim's gaze drifted away from his feet and toward the horizon—to some invisible point beyond. "The Champion's Call… It was so unlike what I had envisioned. There were no gallant warriors with honorable hearts, just sellnails hoping to claim the King's Geo. Our battles were not glorious tests of skill and merit, just desperate flailings in the face of death. Yet somehow, through the King's crucible, we persevered. Together, side by side, the other contenders and I slew beasts and wild bugs. Though many among us fell, even more survived. Eventually, the royal pens were depleted, and when nothing remained to fight, the King rose from his dais, declaring that only one challenger could claim the prize." Ogrim swallowed as though forcing down a shard of glass. "How quickly it changed. Like some perilous spell, that scattering of words twisted allies into mortal foes. The other contenders pounced on one another with all the savagery of the very beasts they'd defeated. And through it all, I simply… _watched_. I could not move, I could not raise my claws, even if that inaction doomed my hopes of Knighthood. Looking back through the lens of years, I should have stopped that madness, saved them from themselves. But now it is far too late for such thoughts." He let out a shivering breath. "By luck alone, I was ignored as all the others fought to the death. The strife was so vicious that not one among them survived it. The moment that the last body fell, the King proclaimed the Champion's Call at an end. I had achieved _victory—_ whatever that might have been—and was Knighted on the spot. As I knelt in that corpse-strewn pit and recited my oath, the King regarded me in such a way that I have never come to fathom. Was it pride in his eyes? Contempt? …Pity?"

With a tortured rasp, Ogrim pushed off my shoulder and righted himself. He gave his head a shake as though casting off a dream. "Apologies, Little Knight. These mawkish displays are unlike me. It seems that I lose my sense of discretion when overly tired. Ignore my prattle, please." His quavering laugh stretched out into nothingness.

Though he was no less wounded than before, Ogrim did not rely on my support a second time. He marched on with a straight back and even step. Between heaving breaths, he hummed the shreds of a tuneless song.

With time, the scattered islands and tumbling clouds gave way to a distorted approximation of The City. Swaths of cobbled ground and fragmented buildings swirled overhead in a patchwork so dense that it eclipsed the sky. It was as if everything had frozen at the very moment of some great, world-sundering cataclysm.

We passed through fissured plazas and down spiraling alleys. Droplets of rain hung motionless in the air and chilled my shell. But with turn after turn, crossroads after crossroads, all sense of direction vanished, and the dream became a labyrinth.

At first, Ogrim seemed not to be bothered, but as the path grew more convoluted, agitation bled through. He kept glancing about, in motions that grew more rapid with every familiar object that we passed—the same warped curio shop, the same tilted statue. Just as Ogrim seemed on the fringe of an outburst, a minuscule sound warbled into being. It was a voice from somewhere far, far away.

"Did you hear that, Little Knight?" Ogrim asked. "Surely you did. I am not so lost to delirium, am I?"

As if in reply, the voice murmured something, loudly enough to hint at its direction.

"Again!" Ogrim hissed. "I heard it, I am certain! It was this way!" With all the haste that his injuries would allow, Ogrim hobbled down a slanted street. "Follow me!"

And I did.

The voice grew more distinct with every turned corner, and as we escaped the crush of leaning buildings, the voice separated into two—one the soft brush of wings, the other the cold burn of iron.

"Then this substance, this _Void,_ will stop the affliction?"

"Indeed."

"And the larva—the V-Vessel—is composed of it? That is how its arm _changed_ into those darkened tendrils?"

"Yes, unbound Void is protean. And supremely dangerous."

"But is the Vessel alive in that state? Is it a living thing like you or I?"

"No, it only masquerades as such. The Vessel is an inversion of life, a walking husk that entraps the Soul of those it touches."

Ogrim paused in a courtyard, intricately tiled and decorated with free-standing pillars. Beyond it, pressing out of the tumult of buildings, was Lurien's Spire. Yet it was wrong, bent at a strange angle. The enormous sheet of glass that rose to its summit was shattered, but the shards had not fallen. They merely scintillated in the air, revolving like suspended ornaments.

From within, through a wide-flung doorway, echoed the voices.

Ogrim's panting was shallow and pain-barbed, but he resumed the pursuit.

"Why tell me all this? Why only now?"

"Because I have no other recourse, my injuries are too severe. If I am to fulfill my duty, then I require your aid. The Vessel must be destroyed, or this world will surely come to ruin."

" _I_ was the one that you nearly destroyed when we last met, and yet here you are, asking my help."

"If I desired you dead, then you would be. Believe what you like, but my only intent was to frighten you away. I made no real attempt on your life."

"My broken wings might beg to differ."

The interior of the Spire contained an atrium, just as its material counterpart did. But this one paid no heed to scale or dimension. Its mirrored ceiling was impossibly high and hurled down spears of reflected light. Its floor was sinuous and flanked on either side by floating library shelves and deep, cloud-filled trenches. Chandeliers dangled overhead, but their chains were tethered to nothing.

And the voices carried on, originating from a gaping archway on the atrium's far side.

"Even if I were to agree… I am still a mere commoner. What aid could you expect from me?"

"Do not play the fool. I have come to realize what you are. The Lady told me of a weapon among the moth tribe that could pierce the realm of dreams and drain the Essence of the dead. It was no coincidence that you were lingering like a starving carrion-eater beside the den of that dying ancient. You intended to gather its Essence, just as you have already done to many other creatures of Kingdom's Edge. You possess power. If nowhere else, then at least here in this fictitious place."

"' _Carrion-eater'_?! I am no such thing! The Essence I have claimed was at the King's command, it has never been for me! But that aside, if you know of the Dream Nail, then you must also know of my tribe's traditions. We are no war-bringers. Violence is not our way."

"Scruple if you must, but I do not require that you assault the Vessel yourself, only incapacitate it."

"You misunderstand. When this tool was bestowed upon me, I was made to vow that I would never unleash its power against those that did not welcome it. I cannot betray the trust of my tribe and my teacher!"

"Does that not smack of hypocrisy? You imprisoned us in this dreamscape with that very power. To your eyes was I welcoming it?"

"That was not the same! I was saving a life, not ending one!"

"You know that is false."

We emerged from the Spire, not to more confined City streets, but to a stony plain beneath the naked sky. The broken buildings and twisted lampposts had been supplanted by a boundless graveyard wreathed in golden fog. As we walked, Ogrim stared fixedly at his feet and the rough-hewn path ahead. Grave after grave passed us by, each one more lavish than the last: pedestals, statues, gilded emblems. Yet, not one among them bore a name.

The voices rebounded off the gravestones, striking us from all sides.

"But what purpose is there in that pacifist's vow? Why cling to it? Your kind was quick to abandon other, far greater traditions when the King first appeared."

"What? The King has always presided over these lands."

"Do you not know? In only a few generations have the moths forgotten? I thought that they prized memory above all else. The King is thorough indeed."

"If you seek my help, then mocking me is a poor way to go about it! Explain yourself, Knight!"

"Very well. Perhaps the truth will spur you to action. At the least, you will come to know your place in all this. And the sins of your ancestors."

The farther we traveled, the more aberrant the graveyard became. The ground was made treacherous by crags and precipices, yet the graves still paraded on without interruption, rising and falling with the terrain, protruding at odd angles from bluffs and sheer cliff faces. The footpath was soon impassable, and we were forced to weave between the headstones. Ogrim looked up only once to survey our progress, but when he did, something caught his gaze.

On a small rise ahead rested another grave. It was not so different from the others, but for some reason Ogrim was transfixed by it. The grave was tall and narrow, carved of a glistening, silver-black stone. A thin, upward-facing crescent adorned its summit in a way that mimicked a pair of horns.

Ogrim shuddered. "Xero?" he whispered. "Why here? Why now?" But with all the effort of a bug removing its own limb, Ogrim tore away from the grave and pressed on, toward the hiss of conspiring voices.

"Though He makes no effort to quell these rumors, it is believed among the King's most zealous disciples that He originated all things, that the world was but an empty expanse before the King saw fit to change that. This is, of course, a mad delusion. The King never possessed such a power. No matter His influence, the King is not the first god, nor the mightiest. The territory and loyal minds that he now controls were stolen from another, far older deity. Your deity."

"What do you mean? That is not so, the King is my deity!"

"Listen to me! Before even my Lady sunk her roots into the earth, your goddess, the Radiance, molded your ancestors from the very Essence of this realm. For arrogance, for love, or for need of a slave, I know not, but She translocated those dream moths onto the material plane and bid them to worship Her. With the passage of ages, the King rose to threaten the Radiance's rule. He sought to undermine the source of Her power—remembrance itself—and stole away her worshipers with honeyed words. Your ancestors betrayed their goddess, their creator, and now She has returned to seek Her vengeance."

"Wh-What manner of vengeance…?"

"You have already surmised that. Feigning ignorance will not soften the blow."

"It… is the affliction, then? That is Her doing?!"

"Correct."

"But that is absurd! That cannot be the reason that my tribe teeters on the brink of extinction! My teacher cannot have died from the petty reprisal of a slighted goddess!"

"I have offered you the truth and nothing more. What would you have me say? All beings—even the gods—lash out at their enemies. You should expect no less."

The graveyard diminished behind the oppressive, golden fog, which grew so dense that I could no longer spy Ogrim's shape, even though he walked only a few paces ahead.

Like a veil being swept aside, the fog gave way to yet another environment, retreating behind wild foliage and contorted towers of stone. All about floated flakes of ash, frozen mid-descent.

Ogrim was beside me, holding still and silent, waiting for the next reverberation of a voice.

"Before you clutch at futile hope, know that the Radiance will not take you back. If She ever possessed the capacity for mercy, then Her time in exile has stripped it away. Only a deranged monstrosity remains now. You and your tribe, just as I and my Lady, are bound to the King's gambit. Should He fail, then your tribe will perish."

"And you suspect that the larva will bring about this failure?"

"I am far beyond suspecting. If the _Vessel_ takes part in the King's ritual, then it will mean the end of Hallownest. No matter how you, or Ogrim, or the King may wish it, the Vessel must be destroyed so that another may take its place."

"But must we k-kill it? Can it have no other fate?"

"Yes! For the final time, yes! Void can _never_ again be allowed focus! I will not see this land follow in the doomed footsteps of that ancient empire! Do you understand me?! Are you willing to do what must be done?!"

"…I am."

Although there was no road or footpath, the rampant foliage parted before us whenever we drew close. It almost seemed to recoil from our presence, forming into backlit tunnels of gray and green. Ogrim's huffing was loud in the confined space. From time to time he would reach out to the tunnel wall for support, but it shrank from him like a furtive creature.

"Little Knight…" Ogrim rumbled, addressing me for the first time since our pursuit began. "These things that Dryya has said of you… the things that she believes you will do… They are not true. Dryya is wise, I cannot deny that, but she is quick to leap at conclusions, her verdict is flawed. Perhaps it is indeed possible that you are not suited for this ritual of the King's, but that hardly means that you are a threat to Hallownest. You are too noble a Knight for that."

He stopped and knelt next to me. "Dryya put aside her nail for the moth. She will do the same for me. I can convince her that you mean no harm, and that there is no need for you to be—" He swallowed, letting the words trail and die.

Using my shoulder as a brace, Ogrim stood. "Just wait," he said, "you will see! The moth is a good-hearted bug, I can sense it. She and Dryya will accept reason. Soon, we will all be free of this strange dream. Trust in me."

The voices did not resume, but this gave Ogrim no pause. He seemed to have discerned the way, as though he had traveled this ever-extending tunnel once before.

Without any hint, any shift of light, the tunnel opened in an emerald burst of leaves. They suspended in the air, just as the ash did, but Ogrim pushed through, taking me with him. Beyond was a stretch of stone that led to the lip of a crater. Ogrim made a noise of triumph, for it resembled the place that Dryya and I had crossed nails, even though the crater and foliage were titanic caricatures.

Dryya was at the edge, looking out to the cloudbanks that whorled in the crater's center. She turned to us, revealing her ravaged right arm. Pale, yellow blood trickled through the fissures and dripped from the end of her limp claw. She held the longnail with her other arm, tip planted into the ground like a walking stick. A multitude of other injuries marked her shell, each one my doing…

"You have come. Good. These wounds have left me in no state for hunting. Many years have passed since I was last bested in combat, the Vessel is indeed a brutal foe. If it were to attain its terminal form, then it would be a terror."

Ogrim held up his claws in a conciliatory gesture. "Dryya, heed me! I overheard your words with the moth. I know what you intend to do. Stop and consider, for only a moment. The Little Knight does not need to perish!"

Dryya let out a low sigh and waved her arm, sprinkling the ground with blood. "No more, Ogrim. I will not indulge you any longer."

A light coalesced high above her head. It began as a point, but expanded upward and outward, becoming something more. Pink wings, antennae, and a slender body solidified in a moth-like shape. It fluttered in place, shedding shining discs with each flap.

"Moth?!" Ogrim shouted. "Is that you?!"

The same soft voice that we had heard throughout our trek greeted us. "Yes, Loyal Ogrim, it is I. Now please, step away from the Vessel. I would rather not wield my powers against you."

Ogrim did not obey, instead planting himself before me, again becoming my shield. "Wait! Wait, I say!"

"No." Dryya hobbled closer with her nail-crutch. "You have had your time. You have said your piece. Do it, moth. Now!"

There was a sound—a wailing note—as though the wind were voicing some anguish. With that came an overpowering light, much like the first flash that had drawn me into the dream. But this light did not rush forth. It hung from Seer's spectral form like a cloak, bristling with greater intensity each second.

"Hold!" Ogrim shouted. "You need not do this!"

"I am sorry." Seer said. "I see no other way to save my tribe."

Ogrim hunched against the growing light. "But if Dryya is mistaken, what then?! Will you have ended the Kingdom's last, best hope? Will you have brought doom and not salvation?!"

Dryya clenched her wounded claw, sending fresh rivulets of blood down her arm. "I am not mistaken!"

"Do you think yourself wiser than the King?" Ogrim asked. "Is he so beyond reason that you must commit this murder behind his back?!"

"Enough!" Dryya labored to look up. "Moth! Fulfill your promise! Aid me!"

"This is wrong!" Ogrim screamed. "You will doom an innocent!"

Seer wavered in the wind of her own power. "I must do what I believe is right!"

… _I must do what I believe is right_.

I touched Ogrim's arm.

He flinched and whipped about to face me. "Little Knight?!"

Slowly, so as not to startle him, I guided Ogrim out of the way and stepped forward, presenting myself to Seer's rampart of light.

"No." Ogrim's said, barely audible in the howl. "Not this way…"

Seer's energy stalled for an instant. The brilliance faltered, and the winds lulled.

"Do not hesitate, moth!" Dryya bellowed. "DO IT!"

And with a sweep of Seer's wings, the light claimed me.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This one took a while... a painfully long while. I've scrapped half of this chapter more than once. It probably wasn't worth agonizing over it so much, but here we are.

As always, I hope you enjoyed it. Sorry for the staggering delay. I think I should stop making vague promises about punctuality from here on out. It'll be done when it's done. That's all I can say.

If you're so inclined, then throw me some feedback. Tell me what you liked, what you didn't like. I thoroughly enjoy reading comments.

Take care.

(btw, please don't be mad about the cliffhanger. i swear i'm not doing it on purpose, the chapters just keep ending this way...)


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